The Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Noxious Weed, and Insect Pest Prevention and Management programs are kicking off a six-month statewide tally of invasive tree-of-heaven locations thanks to funding from the U.S. Forest Service.
To help with the tally join the iNaturalist project at
https://www. inaturalist.org/projects/oregon-treeof-heaven-tally. There is a mobile app that makes it easy to capture treeof- heaven locations. Participants will be able to follow the progress of the tally on the project page.
Tree-of-heaven is a noxious weed that is a key host to the invasive spotted lanternfly, an insect which has the potential to cause significant damage to economically and ecologically important plants including grapevines, and maple, black walnut, birch, and willow trees. Key identifying features to treeof- heaven are its large leaves with smaller pointed leaflets that have small “lobes” at the base with small raised glands on back, the distinctive smell which some describe as rancid peanut butter, and the heart-shaped scars left behind when the large leaf stems fall from the trunk.
