I have a beautiful arrangement of live plants on my lanai. They were a Father's Day gift to my husband from his nieces this year. They reminded me of another gift several years ago containing a beautiful little plant that grew and grew, bloomed, and presented with a multitude of bright red berries. Getting quite large, I repotted it and (quite proudly, I might add) set it out in our vestibule.

And then something in the way that plant looked reminded me of a workshop I attended several years before. Eek! I had just unleashed the dreaded Ardisia crenata! Thank goodness it was in a pot and not in the ground.

I proceeded to destroy it, although I could have kept it on the lanai since it was screened in and not available to the birds.

Birds would have eaten the berries and, doing what birds do, flew away, dispersed the seeds which would then germinate, grow and begin to destroy ecologically sensitive areas.

Why? Ardisia crenata, aka coral ardisia (also spelled ardesia), coralberry, spiceberry and Christmas berry, is considered a Category 1 invasive by the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council.

ccording to FLEPPC, "Category 1 are invasive exotics that are altering native plant communities by displacing native species, changing community structures or ecological functions or hybridizing with natives.

"This definition does not rely on the economic severity or geographic range of the problem, but on the documented ecological damage caused."

By compiling invasive plant lists and revising them every two years, FLEPPC performs an important service with information available to the conscientious homeowner. They use botanists plus other professionals to decide which plants should be on the list.
If you're wondering what kind of problem my little plant can cause, you'd be interested to know I found out the Sierra Club recently scheduled a field trip to Rainbow Springs State Park.

From April 8 through the 15th of this year, their volunteers helped the Florida Park Services rid the area of as much coral ardesia, air potato, wedelia and skunk vine as possible.

Threatening nature's balance by cutting down on the variety of native plants, coral ardesia reduces light by shading out the understory in forests. Once established, the shrubs are so thick (as many as 100 plants per square meter) they eliminate native groundcovers such as violets and trilliums.

Cutting them down doesn't help since they will quickly regrow, and fire won't stop them either.

So when you get that gorgeous plant arrangement as a gift and it outgrows the pot, please don't plant outside or dump the pot in a place where the plants may grow and spread. You never know what damage you may be unleashing into the environment.
For more information on Florida exotic plant problems and how you can help, visit www.invasive.org for a list of Florida noxious weeds and www.fleppc.org, which is the official Web site for the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council.

Be sure to click on Invasives 101 and the Proper Uses of FLEPPC Invasive Plant Lists. Contact your local extension office for more information if you do not have Internet access.

Anne-Marie Conard is an Ocala gardener. Contact her at FLFriendlyGarden@msn.com.