Chinese Tallow: Urban Invasion

The last couple months we’ve looked at Chinese tallow from a rural perspective. It is not only a rural issue, though — Chinese tallow is also invading urban areas. For example, Houston has about 5.7 million Chinese tallowtrees at least one inch in diameter, which account for 17 percent of its overall tree population. Of these, 4.6 million — 81 percent — are on public land.

Where does this information come from? Forest Inventory and Analysis is a data source we use frequently. Recently, the FIA program expanded into urban areas. In Texas, urban inventories in Austin and Houston have been completed, with inventories currently underway in San Antonio and Fort Worth. Urban FIA meshes the quality and rigor of the traditional FIA program with urban forestry and gives us a strategic view of the urban forest.

For the Chinese tallowtree analysis, I mapped the plots from the Houston 2015 inventory according to Chinese tallow presence and ownership type (public vs. private). Looking at ownership helps us identify opportunities for management and partnership. For more detail from the analysis, see the report “Chinese Tallowtree in East Texas.” The numbers were obtained from My City’s Trees, an online application that makes Urban FIA information accessible to the public.

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Join the conversation!

Chinese tallow is not just a rural issue – there are 5.7 million of these trees in Houston. Learn more at https://t.co/E0Fji9esxo. #MapMonday#MonthlyMapMonday#chinesetallow#invasivespeciespic.twitter.com/kPgD6nu9YE

— Texas A&M Forest Service (@TXForestService) February 25, 2019