Japanese pachysandra (Pachysandra terminalis)

Common Names: Japanese spurge, Chinese fever vine

Description: Introduced to North America as an ornamental groundcover.

Habit: Evergreen perennial herb groundcover that can reach 12 inches in height and spread to form dense mats.

Leaves: Small, oval-shaped, 2-4 inches long, alternate.

Flowers: White in color, appear between March and April.

Fruit and seeds: Fruits are on terminal branches and extremely small.

Habitat: Native to China and Japan. Can be found growing along forest and meadow edges.

Reproduction: Vegetatively through underground stems and roots.

Monitoring and rapid response: Hand pulling and controlled burning have been successful in appropriate areas. It can also be effectively controlled using any of several readily available general use herbicides such as glyphosate.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from the USDA Forest Service Weed of the Week 02-15-05.

Individual species images that appear with a number in a black box are courtesy of the Bugwood.org network (http://www.invasive.org).Individual photo author credits may not be included due to the small display size of the images and subsequent difficulty of reading the provided text. All other images appear courtesy of Google (http://images.google.com).

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