ALIEN PLANTS IN HALEAKALA NATIONAL PARK

Lloyd L. Loope, Ronald J. Nagata, and Arthur C. Medeiros

excerpted from article in: Stone, Charles P., Clifford W. Smith, and J. Timothy Tunison. 1992. Alien plant invasions in native ecosystems of Hawaii: management and research. pp. 551-576.

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Fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum)

This large bunchgrass from northern Africa has spread aggressively throughout leeward Hawai'i Island during the past two decades, becoming potentially uncontrollable in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (Tunison, this volume). Fountain grass creates an exceptionally large standing fuel source and promotes the spread of fires more than any other grass yet introduced to the Hawaiian Islands. Fountain grass is present on Maui only in a small area of the sand hills of southeastern Wailuku. However, it poses a serious threat to rangelands of southern East Maui with lightly vegetated, young volcanic substrates as well as to the largely barren, relatively undisturbed ecosystems of upper Haleakala. Based on its occurrence as high as 9,000 ft (2,740 m) on Manna Kea (J. Jacobi, pers. comm.), it must be regarded as a potential invader of Haleakala Crater. Persistent control efforts by the Maui weed control office of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture for over 20 years have kept fountain grass confined to two small populations, one a residential area where the invasive populations apparently originated from an ornamental planting. A larger secondary population in a nearby dump area occupies more favorable habitat on relatively open, sandy sites. These populations are controlled by hand pulling of seedlings and mature plants at one- to two-month intervals, with bagging of seeding inflorescences for disposal at a nearby landfill. An average of about 2,000 plants/year were removed from 1983 to 1985 (E. Tamura, Hawaii Department of Agriculture, pers. comm.). In May 1986, population numbers were low and apparently decreasing due to a declining seed bank after several years of concerted effort at control of young plants before seed was set. As of early 1991, however, a small population persisted.

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Map and website prepared by the Hawaii Ecosystems at Risk Project, CPSU, University of Hawaii Botany Department, copyright (c) 1997 Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii. This page was created on 28 September 1997 by PT, and was last updated on 28 September 1997 by PT.