Plant · P-158

Tree Of Heaven

Ailanthus altissima

Tree Of Heaven grows fast on almost any ground - alkaline clay, urban pollution, drought - and is documented to reclaim genuinely contaminated sites where little else takes hold. Its leaves carry a chemical that stops other tree seedlings from establishing nearby, and its foliage's odor is strong enough to cause headaches and nausea in people working around it, while contact with cut wood can bring on skin rashes. It is also the preferred host of the spotted lanternfly, a pest that targets grapes and stone fruit, and it spreads on its own by both seed and root sprout - one tree can produce hundreds of thousands of seeds in a year, and cutting it down tends to trigger more root sprouts rather than fewer.