Prohibited Plant List

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The following list is a list of plants that are prohibited for sale in the states that follow them, and cannot be sold in those states. Before making your plant purchase, please look over this list to see if the plants that you have selected are on it.

Though we make every effort to keep unwanted plants out of these states, responsibility lies solely on the person making the purchase if a prohibited plant is accidentally shipped into your state. Please do your part and check this page first.

This list will more-than-likely continue to grow if other plants become a problem, and it will vary with different states. We will update it as the information becomes available to us. If you know of a particular aquatic plant that we sell and it is not listed here, but it is prohibited in your state, email us its "common" name and its correct "botanical" or latin name. We will research it and post it, if it applies. If you are from a state or federal government agency, we urge you to please do the same.

Some of the plants listed here have become "nuisance" or "noxious" plants, from being attached to boats, waterfowl, or other wildlife entering a particular body of water. They deposit the plants, and then the plants grow where they shouldn't, or where they are not native in that particular body of water or part of the country. Some plants became nuisance or noxious plants from people unknowingly (or knowingly) releasing them into natural bodies of water. (Remember as a child, your parents innocently dumping your pet goldfish down the storm drain or into the backyard stream??)

Today we all know that we should protect our environment! Some state regulators (as well as USDA regulators) are doing something about this issue by banning the sale and/or ownership of these nuisance plants and labeling them as "Prohibited" or "Noxious" plants. For whatever reason, we will not (and cannot) sell these prohibited plants in those particular states.

Please, do the environment and the future of water gardening (as a whole) a favor and be responsible ….do not release purchased aquatic plants into natural (or other) bodies of water, streams or storm drains, as they are intended for use in your decorative and/or enclosed pond, only.

If you must do away with your excess aquatic plants....bury them in your garden (some plants like Water Hyacinth, make excellent fertilizer), give them away to a watergardening friend, kill the plants by drying them on your driveway in the hot sun or compost them in your compost pile.

THE LIST (Updated on 12-31-2013)

(Please note: We know there are many other prohibited plants that have not been included here. To make ordering easier, you will only find the plants that we sell included in this list.)

Prohibited Plant

American Frog Bit (Limnobium spongia) Floating / Lily-like

Anacharis (Egeria densa) Oxygenating / Aquarium

Aquatic Mint (Mentha aquatica) Hardy Marginal / Bog

Cabomba (Cabomba caroliniana) Oxygenating / Aquarium

Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus) Hardy Marginal / Bog

Foxtail (Myriophyllum heterophyllum) Oxygenating / Aquarium

Four Leaf Clover ((Marsilea mutica)) Hardy Marginal/Bog

Iris, Yellow Flag (Iris pseudacorus) Hardy Marginal / Bog

Parrot Feather (Myriophyllum aquaticum) Hardy Marginal/Bog

Pickerel Weed any color (Pontederia cordata) Hardy Marginal/Bog

Salvinia (Salvinia minima) Floating

Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) Floating

Water Lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) Floating

Prohibited in:

California

Alabama, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington

Idaho, Montana, Nebraska and Wyoming

California, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington

New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington

Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont

Oklahoma

Vermont and Washington

Alabama, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Vermont and Washington

Louisiana

Texas, North Carolina

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas

Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas