TBO.com > News > News blog Reports
- Skidmore proposes statewide protections for transgender people as Tampa enacts rule locally
- Get your Bill McCollum autograph today! GOP reigns supreme on eBay (updated)
- Unemployment in Florida reaches 11.2 percent; debate over federal aid continues
- Rubio within 10 points of Crist? So says Daily Kos poll
- Sink’s CFO office chief to move to campaign
- AG race could be a contest of dog lovers
- Meek tries to pin down Crist on unemployment compensation aid
- Rubio backer collects $$ from Crist buddies
- GOP “emergency meeting” tomorrow; Okaloosa party votes against Greer
- Dockery snags endorsement from former GOP chairman Tom Slade
- Erin Isaac’s resignation letter
- Aronberg gets painters’ union endorsement
- AARP: Poll shows members support health care reform
- New “fair and balanced” Tally news service coming?
- Today’s number: 35, average age for high blood pressure in military
Melaleuca on display at Babe Zaharias Golf Course in Tampa’s Forest Hills.
You’ll find white oak, loblolly pine, tulip tree and many more native plants on our database of Florida’s Champion Trees, but not melaleuca.
Melaleuca is so sinister the University of Florida has a brochure titled “Tame melaleuca: A century of melaleuca invasion in South Florida.”
“First brought to Florida from Australia around 1900,” the brochure says, “melaleuca (MEL-ah-LUKE-ah) found widespread use as an ornamental tree and as a soil stabilizer on levees and spoil islands. It was even used in early attempts to dry up the Everglades.”
You know the rest of the story. Introducing flora or fauna to achieve a goal nature couldn’t manage on its own seldom ends well. Melaleuca, known for its potato smell in spring, ran rampant and crowded out native plants.
It now covers half a million acres in south Florida alone and is illegal to sell, cultivate or even possess.
These trees in Forest Hills must be grandfathered in.
Think happier thoughts at the champion trees database. Plenty of native species still grow tall and strong and you can take a digital walk among them, courtesy of the Florida Division of Forestry.
Advertisement
@tbo_factfinders
