Alien Invader Plants
Izihlahla Zokufika Ezhlaselayo
Uitheemse Probleem Plante

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CONTROL: Use a combination of mechanical and chemical means.
Manual: Hand-pull or uproot seedlings and saplings.  Slashed or cut down larger plants coppice readily, so either dig up entire rootstock or apply herbicide after cutting.
Chemical: Foliar spray any regrowth/coppicing during follow-up operations.  Stalk Immersion: try Garlon® 4 50ml/10l water.  Foliar spray: use Garlon® 4 50ml, Roundup®, etc 300ml or Muster® 150ml/10l water.

DESCRIPTION: Leaves with stout backward pointing prickles underneath; pale yellow flowers grouped together in hanging clusters; brown, woody pods (A) flattened and curved; evergreen, scrambling, prickly shrub from 2 - 4m but can climb to almost 10m often forming dense thickets.  Flowering time: May to November.

ORIGIN: Originates from India and Sri Lanka.  First imported by missionaries who planted it to keep out wild animals.

WHERE FOUND/PROBLEMS CAUSED: In high rainfall areas where it typically invades disturbed forest fringes and degraded, overgrazed veld, especially in rural areas.  Hampers human and animal movement because of its thorny, tangled growth.  Spreads along watercourses and has found its way into our indigenous forests.  Its trailing branches root where they touch the ground, but the main cause of its spread is due to animal and water dispersal of its large seeds.

DID YOU KNOW: Still planted by some rural communities around their kraals where it soon forms an impenetrable barrier.

This page was last edited on 22 April, 2006