Black locust tree forests

Black locust trees are not European plants. They originally come from the east coast of North America and were imported in the early 1600s as an ornamental species. Their rapid spread has allowed them to conquer a vast area of land to the detriment of native woodlands. One of the causes of this is the excessive exploitation of land and the neglect of farmland, where black locust trees have spread as quickly as weeds, soon forming quite monotonous stretches of woodland with very few other trees and shrubs, such as elder and other species that usually signal a decline like brambles and old man's beard (clematis vitalba). The equally poor ground cover encourages the growth of wild garlic, wood anemones, violets, tassel hyacinths, Italian arum and hellebores.