EUROPEAN WATER CHESTNUT (Trapa natans)
The water chestnut grows in the pond, around the edges. It roots underwater and grows partially submerged, with leafy rosettes, runners that can extend for many feet if allowed to spread, and a dangerous seed pod with sharp thorns poking in four different directions. It can puncture your foot if you step on it! The plant itself is easy to uproot, but seeds can lie dormant for up to twelve years, so it’s important to try to pull up the plants by July, before they grow their fruit.
seeds of the water chestnut (trapa natans) 
water chestnut (trapa natans)
GARLIC MUSTARD (Alliaria petiolata)
Garlic mustard grows alond roadsides and in open and semi-shaded meadows. It has an innocuous look, some might consider the flowers pretty, but it alters the soil chemistry to disrupt the ecosystem and displace our beautiful diverse fields full of flowers and berries with a monoculture. You can pull up young plants and leave them in the road, but once they have seed pods it’s best to place them in the dumpster. They can re-root tenaciously, so don’t put them in your compost!
JAPANESE BARBERRY (Berberis thunbergii)
Japanese Barberry is a imported ornamental shrub that has escaped gardens and now grows on the edges of our woodlands and and even deep into our woods. It can disrupt ecosystems and provides ideal habitat for the deer tick (a.k.a. the black-legged tick), which carries Lyme Disease.
JAPANESE STILTGRASS (Microstegium vimineum)
Japanese stiltgrass grows on the forest floor and edges, by stream banks, roadsides and ditches, in fields, alongside trails, and as a weed in lawns and gardens. It expands into dense stands of grass that prevent flowers, berries and all our local vegetation from growing, making the habitat unfriendly to local animals and insects.
BURNING BUSH (Euonymus alatus)
Burning Bush was orginally imported from Asia as an ornamental shrub for gardens, and has since spread into our woodlands, displacing native trees and shrubs. It has red-purple seeds and distinctive ridges along the bark on some branches.
