Camphor Laurel is a destructive weed.
Camphor laurel (Cinnamomum camphora)
Don’t be fooled by producers of timber products that use Camphor Laurel that it is anything other than a weed. They will all tell you that they are helping the environment by removing these trees and therefore helping our landscape, they are doing quite the opposite. These producers have created a market for Camphor Laurel and encourage land owners to grow these weeds. If someone created a market for Lantana, every land owner on the East Coast would stop getting rid of it.
Think for one minute if you were a land owner with these young trees growing on a river bank and “Joe furniture / board maker ” came to you and offered you a price for those trees on maturity, would you poison them as you should or sell them. If there is a market anyone would sell them, the market needs to be stopped.
Camphor laurel seeds germinate more readily after ingestion by birds. It is thought that the fruit contains a germination inhibitor to delay germination until seeds are separated from the fruit. Viability is usually at least 70 per cent in the first year, decreasing rapidly in the second year. Some seeds remain viable for 3 years.
The following is information taken from the NSW Government’s website and is pretty self explanatory.
How does this weed affect you?
Camphor laurel has the ability to adapt to the disturbed environment, it has prolific seed production and rapid growth rate as well as a lack of serious predators or diseases, it also has many specific attributes which enhance its weed status.
It has a tendency to form single species communities and exclude most other tree species, including desirable native vegetation.
It has a competitive advantage over native vegetation because it establishes easily.
Birds and other fauna readily eat the fruit and disperse the seeds.
It has a very dense, shallow root system which, when accompanied by the shading provided by the canopy, suppresses the regeneration of native seedlings.
It can destabilise stream banks due to undercutting by the shallow root system and the general lack of ground cover species around the trees to hold the soil in place.
Mature camphor laurel trees are large and therefore difficult and expensive to remove.
Camphor laurel trees are long-lived with some trees being over 100 years old and reports of some up to 500 years old in their native habitat.
Camphor laurel trees regenerate easily after lopping.
Invasion of agricultural lands by camphor laurel can cause significant impacts on productivity and the costs of control can reduce the viability of some agricultural pursuits.
On the north and mid north coast, camphor laurel invades large areas of land and inhibits potential land use in the same way as lantana, groundsel bush, crofton weed and privet. It is especially troublesome on sloping, rocky land not readily accessible to machinery or grazing animals, and on better land not intensively utilised. The contraction of dairying and banana farming since the 1960s has resulted in large areas becoming infested with camphor laurel.
Toxicity
Camphor laurel is mildly toxic to humans, and mild symptoms may occur if large quantities are eaten. All parts of the plant are poisonous and can cause nausea, vomiting and respiratory distress. Allergic skin reactions can also occur.
The only way to curtail this destructive weed is to stop the producers of these end products. When producers stop paying land owners for this weed and are encouraged to use indigenous timber, we might get to a point of eradicating this weed and letting our natural species thrive.