Identification Guide For Invasive Exotic Plants of the Florida Keys

Scientific Name:
Common Name(s):
Tribulus cistoides
Puncture weed
Height:
Leaves:
Flowers:
Bark:
Fruit:
Other:
Treatment:
N/A (trailing and prostrate)
Six-inch long leaves divided into six to eight pairs of elliptic or oblong
leaflets ranging from 1/4 to 1/2 inch long.
Solitary and yellow five-petalled flowers are produced year-round.
N/A
Hard, 1/2-inch wide fruit produce a few stout spines.
Subshrub introduced as a salt- and drought-tolerant groundcover for coastal
plantings. The fruit spines are stout enough to puncture rubber sandals and
bicycle tires, making it unpopular in beach parks and other coastal settings.
Puncture vine invades dunes and coastal strand as well as sandy inland sites.
It also colonizes road swales, median strips, and other disturbed sites.
Foliar with 2% Roundup Pro
www.co.miami-dade.fl.us/derm/badplants.htm
Photo by Kaita Frank
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