Melaleuca

Melaleuca quinquenervia

In Florida, however, melaleuca is a pest, especially in the Everglades and surrounding areas, where the trees grow into immense forests, virtually eliminating all other vegetation. Melaleuca grows in terrestrial as well as in completely aquatic situations. The Everglades, the mostly treeless "river of grass", in some places has become the "river of trees", a completely alien habitat to the plants and animals that have evolved to live in the glades. During the 50 years since its introduction into the state, melaleuca has taken over hundreds of thousands of acres of Everglades, threatening the very existence of this internationally known eco-treasure.

Melaleuca produces huge quantities of seeds, which become small trees, which grow into almost impenetrable monocultures. Researchers are attempting to find ways to control melaleuca: herbicides are proving to be somewhat effective, but purposely-set management fires (and lightning-started fires) apparently actually help spread the seeds and trees. Recently, biological control insects have been released against melaleuca, but it will be some time before biocontrol results will be known.

How To Identify Melaleuca

Melaleuca is a tree, to about 80 feet tall. Its bark is whitish, spongy, peeling, and in many layers. Its leaves are to 5 inches long, alternate, evergreen, simple, short-stalked, narrowly elliptic. Leaf veins are more or less parallel. Melaleuca's white flowers are small and crowded in bottlebrush-like spikes at branch tips. The fruit are short, cylindric or squarish, woody capsules with many tiny seeds.

For more information and pictures about melaleuca tree, as contained in the Langeland/Burks book, Identification & Biology of Non-Native Plants in Florida's Natural Areas, download this Acrobat .PDF file.

For ecology information about melaleuca in Florida, download this UF/IFAS-EDIS publication, Ecological Consequences of Invasion by Melaleuca quinquenervia in South Florida Wetlands: Paradise Damaged, Not Lost, by F.J. Mazzotti, T.D. Center, F.A. Dray and D.D. Thayer.

Here are links to various UF/IFAS-EDIS publications about biological controls of melalueca.

Here is a link toTAME Melaleuca.

The UF/IFAS Assessment lists plants according to their invasive status in Florida. View the list here.

Click here to see the herbarium specimen image of the UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA HERBARIUM DIGITAL IMAGING PROJECTS.