It produces a ton of seed, so it self-sows, but it's all very minute and pretty much useless to birds. When, for example, it crowds cattails out of a marsh, red-wing blackbirds lose an important nesting area. It's an important consideration at the arboretum, home to some 45 bird species, with sightings of many more. It's a foreign plant that does a lot of damage. Walters knows from experience the importance of educating the public on the difference between native plants and invasive foreign species.
Oriental bittersweet is another one.
It's new to Lucas County, and I've only seen a couple populations of it so far, but I think of it as the northern version of kudzu. It's a vine that does really well here and will cover trees so that they're coated - it'll eventually bring them down. We've been cutting it and trying to get rid of it at the arboretum. I was doing a tour once and we walked by the brush pile where the plants are thrown before we dispose of them. The bittersweet was there - it has bright orange berries and since it was near Christmas, people immediately wanted to take it out of the brush pile.