PARTNERS: USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station

SUMMARY: Invasions of nonnative plants into forests of the southern United States continue to go unchecked and unmonitored. Invasive nonnative plants infest under and beside forest canopies and dominate small forest openings, increasingly eroding forest productivity, hindering forest use and management activities, and degrading diversity and wildlife habitat. Often called nonnative, exotic, nonindigenous, alien, or noxious weeds, they occur as trees, shrubs, vines, grasses, ferns, and forbs. Jim Miller’s Nonnative Invasive Plants of Southern Forests, originally published in 2003, provides information on accurate identification and effective control of the 33 nonnative plants and groups that are currently invading the forests of the 13 Southern States, showing both growing and dormant season traits. It lists other nonnative plants of growing concern, control strategies, and selective herbicide application procedures. Recommendations for preventing and managing invasions on a specific site include maintaining forest vigor with minimal disturbance, constant surveillance and treatment of new unwanted arrivals, and finally rehabilitation following eradication.

EFETAC'S ROLE: EFETAC provided funding for this project.

STATUS: Completed

PROGRESS: Nonnative Invasive Plants of Southern Forests was updated for 2007. Fifty-five thousand copies of the book (General Technical Report-SRS-062) were reprinted.

In 2010, Jim Miller updated the book with new species and control measures resulting in two publications: A field guide for the identification of invasive plants in southern forests (General Technical Report-SRS-119) and A management guide for invasive plants in southern forests (General Technical Report-SRS-131).

LINKS: 

Nonnative Invasive Plants of Southern Forests

A field guide for the identification of invasive plants in southern forests

A management guide for invasive plants in southern forests

USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station

CONTACT: Southern Research Station Publications, pubrequest@fs.fed.us

Updated December 2011