Ill-reputed allelopathor (soil poisoner), Tree-of-Heaven will grow where others won’t. It’s dioecious, which means plants are either male or female. It’s an attractive landscape plant but, not too long-lived…and it can be brittle. If you have some on your property, keep the males if you don’t want any seed production. It even has its very own webworm moth named after it. And, get this, the moth is a native animal. NPN’s hate it when that happens; a native moth using a non-native plant. S*** happens even for NPN’s, I guess.It’s not hard to find these trees, great and small, especially along roadsides, growing with natives and non-natives, alike. What is hard to find is an ailanthus-induced wasteland due to all of that poison it is secreting.This tree started growing in a place that no native plant would deem suitable WRT its living requirements (most native plants are princesses). But, that won’t stop the herbicidists from rectifying this situation. Their answer: Let’s keep adding poison to the soil (assuming you believe that this plant has already poisoned it).
