Distribution and biological control of Chromolaena odorata - Invasive Plants: Ecological and Agricultural Aspects - page 197

tropical regions of West and Central Africa. In the Indian Ocean island of
Mauritius it was introduced around 1949 [2].
Unlike in West Africa, the introduction of chromolaena to South Africa took
place directly from the neotropics. It was first recorded growing in Cape Town
Botanical Gardens in 1858 but then not recorded until 1947 in Natal [13, 14].
It became naturalized around Durban in the late 1940s [15]. This supports the
view that the biotype of South African chromolaena is different from the one
that invaded other parts of the world [16, 17].
Waterhouse [18] reported the establishment of chromolaena in the area
spanning hundreds of square kilometers near Tully and Bingil Bay in northern
Queensland in 1994 and more recently an area near Townsville, Queensland in
Australia (Rachel McFadyen, personal communication).
The herbarium specimens collected in Guam indicate that the introduction
of chromolaena to Micronesia took place in the early 1960s [19]. Since then,
it has spread to the rest of the Micronesian Islands mostly through the move-
ment of the contaminated equipment for road construction and other activities.
Currently chromolaena has spread to most of the humid tropical regions of
West and Central Africa, Southern Africa, Asia, Micronesia and a few places
in northern Queensland, Australia (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. Distribution of Chromolaena odorata as a weed