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Invasive Plants
For centuries, gardeners and farmers have been rearranging the planet's flora, transporting seeds, crops, and prized horticultural specimens to and fro across vast land masses and oceans. Many of the exotic plants we have introduced by intention or accident have been beneficial to us and ecologically benign. But a small percentage have run rampant. Gaining a foothold first in areas disturbed by human activities, they moved into natural areas where they have not only driven out indigenous species but, in the worst cases, radically altered the ecosystems they have invaded.
Invasives reproduce rapidly and can form stands that exclude nearly all other plants. In the process, they damage natural areas, altering ecosystem processes, displacing native species, hybridizing with natives and changing their genetic makeup, and supporting other nonnative plants, animals, and pathogens.
According to Brooklyn Botanic Garden's publication Invasive Plants: Weeds of the Global Garden, about half of the worst invasive plants in North America were introduced for horticultural use. Therefore, gardeners can play a major role in helping to prevent ecological damage due to plant invasion by not growing species that are invasive or potentially invasive. BBG has compiled a list of invasive and potentially invasive plants in the New York metropolitan region. Many other state, regional, and national lists of invasive species are available online.