Updated Florida Exotic Invasive Plant List

The Florida Pest Plant Council has updated their exotic invasive plant lists for 2011.  The list is an excellent resource for ensuring landscape selections do not include plants that can escape and endanger native habitats. FLEPPC separatesd invasives into two categories, I and II. 

Category I includes "invasive exotics that are altering native plant communities by displacing native species, changing community structures or ecological functions, or hybridizing with natives. This definition does not rely on the economic severity or geographic range."

Category II invasives are plants "that have increased in abundance or frequency but have not yet altered Florida plant communities to the extent shown by Category I species. These species may become ranked Category I, if ecological damage is demonstrated of the problem, but on the documented ecological damage caused."

New plants added to the 2011 Category I list:

• Deparia petersenii, Japanese false spleenwort
• Lumnitzera racemosa, black mangrove - Not to be confused with native black mangrove, Avicennia germinans
• Phymatosorus scolopendria, serpent fern, wart fern

New plants added to the 2011 Category II list:

• Ardesia japonica, Japanese ardesia
• Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, large-leaved mangrove
• Cocos nucifera, coconut palm
• Syzygium jambos,  Malabar plum, rose apple

Corrections on the plant list include: 

Jasminum sambac and Solanum jamaicense removed from Category II based on lack of data in natural areas. Urena lobata moved from Category II to Category I.



USDA-NRCS

City and county planners, nurseries and growers, and landscape architects and designers should make note of these new changees.