Authoritative websites and documents describing invasive plant species in Maryland and the mid-Atlantic, including information on removal.
A quick guide to removing invasive plants and native plants to replace them
Mid-Atlantic Plant Invaders (MAIT)
This online interactive database provides the most complete list of invasive plants, and plants at risk of becoming invasive, in Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The list is easily searched, filtered, and downloaded. Basic information and numerous photos are provided for each species.
Click go to MAIT List of Current and Possible Invasive Plants
Note that Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas is a 150 page downloadable document written by some of the same people behind the MAIT database. MAIT has a more comprehensive list of invasive plants. Invaders of the Mid-Atlantic has more information on removal methods.
Maryland Invasive Species Council (MISC)
“The Maryland Invasive Species Council (MISC), established in April 2000, is a group of concerned scientists, land managers, business people and citizens acting to reduce the spread of invasive plants, animals and diseases.” [4]
MISC has compiled from other sources a long list of terrestrial invasive plants in Maryland. Note that the list apparently has not been updated since 2019. This may be because the effort has transferred to maintaining the MAIT tool.
Maryland Definition of Invasive Plants
Click to go to current MDA Invasive Plant List.
Maryland Department of Agriculture regulates the sale of invasive plants. Until recently, Maryland’s Invasive Plant Advisory Committee (IPAC) has used a weed assessment protocol to determine whether to advise the Secretary of Agriculture to classify an invasive plant as
- Tier I (a person may not propagate, import, transfer, sell, purchase, transport, or introduce any living part of the plant in MD) or
- Tier 2 (a person may not sell or provide landscaping services to plant the plant without informing the customer).
Relatively few invasive plants in Maryland “pass” this protocol to be declared Tier 1 or Tier 2 invasives. The current MDA Invasive Plant List is relatively short for that reason.
That situation is in the process of changing, due to the Biodiversity and Agriculture Protection Act — sometimes called the “invasive plant species bill” — went into effect in June 2024. A new invasive species list was supposed to replace the tier classification system by October 2024. The wording of the regulations based on the bill are still under discussion. Learn more about this bill…
Click here to learn more about classifying plants as invasive.
City of Takoma Park Municipal Code
The administrative regulation on noxious growths and undesirable trees summarizes the city code prohibitions on invasive and other plant species. [2,3]
In brief, property owners are
- prohibited from having certain plants, mostly natives, that are considered obnoxious (e.g., poison ivy, ragweed),
- required to prevent the spread from their property of certain other plants, most invasive, that can damage, trees, native vegetation, or buildings, and
- automatically given a permit to remove twelve species of invasive trees, provided replacement trees are planted.
Good Green: Homeowner’s Guide to Managing Invasive Plants
Good Green is a fourteen page downloadable guide useful mostly for its review of the various methods of invasive plant removal.
Friends of Native Trees in Takoma 