Some previously discussed harms of invasive plants, such as the English ivy or marjoram grown in the wild, included the direct damage done to California’s native plants, like directly depleting soil nutrients and causing physical damage to nearby trees. One huge harm that isn’t mentioned as much is the potential fire hazard some of these species pose and how that can contribute to California’s already prevalent problem of wildfires.
One species to watch out for is the pampas grass. Though some choose to foster populations of these already declared invasive species, it does not damage the environment if it is planted in carefully planned locations and population sizes. However, it can be hard to control this as these plants spread fairly rapidly and are extremely hard to remove due to their extremely deep roots. Therefore, mitigation is the best strategy to avoid these issues. To make matters worse, aside from their invasive properties as a weed, the pampas grass secretes flammable oil and is overall a dry plant in large masses per area, so they can easily catch fire with California’s dry lighting, and the amount it can spread causes damage to not only the surrounding ecosystems but also human infrastructure.
One kind of tree to avoid is the eucalyptus tree. Though native to Australia, the eucalyptus tree is extremely invasive here in California in many ways. It is direct competition with many of California’s plants and trees while not supporting any of the native animal species that have coevolved with trees native to California. In addition to reducing biodiversity directly through competition, the way that eucalyptus trees have allow dry, oily leaves to build up on the ground greatly contributes to its impact on California’s already major problem of wildfires, similar to the pampas grass.
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