Vermont Land Trust - Invasive Species in Vermont

                    

Invasive Species in Vermont: Tools for identification and eradication

Upcoming invasives event in Burlington, see our events page.

Difficult to control and at times tricky to identify, invasives pose a severe threat to native plants and animals in forest communities by outcompeting and aggressively monopolizing light, nutrients, soil, moisture, and space.

According to information compiled by the Vermont Invasive Exotic Plant Committee, approximately one-third of plant species in Vermont are not native. Many of these plants are beneficial and economically important, such as our state flower, red clover. Others, like Queen Anne’s lace, have a neutral impact. But around eight percent of these non-native plants can potentially wreak great environmental and economic harm because of their ability to grow rapidly, profusely, and widely; these plants are invasive species. Unfortunately there is nothing preventing garden shops from selling certain invasives locally, and they are not labeled as such. Once established, these plants threaten.

The fact sheets below provide identification and eradication information on some of the most common invasives in Vermont.

General Resources on Invasive Species

Specific Species Information (Alphabetical)

The resources listed below describe identification and eradication of many of Vermont’s Class A and B Noxious Weeds.

Black Swallow-wort

Common and Glossy Buckthorn

Common Reed

Eurasian Watermilfoil

Exotic Bush Honeysuckles

Fanwort

Garlic Mustard

Goutweed

Hydrilla

Japanese Barberry

Japanese Honeysuckle

Japanese Knotweed

Multiflora Rose

Norway Maple

Oriental Bittersweet

Pale Swallow-wort

Purple Loosestrife General

Russian/Autumn Olive

Smooth Bedstraw

Tree-of-Heaven

Water Chestnut

Wild Chervil

 

 

Glossy Buckthorn

Glossy Buckthorn
Gil Wojciech, Polish Forest Research Institute, Bugwood.org

 

Eurasian watermilfoil

Eurasian watermilfoil
Alison Fox, University of Florida, Bugwood.org

 

Garlic Mustard
Garlic Mustard
Jody Shimp, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Bugwood.org

 

Japanese Barberry
Japanese Barberry
Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org

 

Japanese Knotweed

Japanese Knotweed
Britt Slattery, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bugwood.org

 

Japanese Honeysuckle

Japanese Honeysuckle
Chuck Bargeron, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org

 

Multiflora Rose

Multiflora Rose
James H. Miller, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

 

Norway Maple

Norway Maple
Joseph O'Brien, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

 

Purple Loosestrife

Purple Loosestrife
Norman E. Rees, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org

 

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