Policies

Membership Criteria
FANN seeks as members those companies, organizations and individuals involved in the commercial production, sale or use of native plants, including landscape and restoration, vendors of related products and services, educators, institutions and agencies.

Membership Code of Ethics
All members are expected to:

• Exert every effort toward the preservation and protection of our natural resources.
• Abide by FANN bylaws and conduct business in good faith.
• Abide by all local, state and federal laws.
• Provide true and correct information to the public.

Upon joining and during annual renewal processes, members certify that information they provide is true and correct, that they will comply with this code of ethics, and that they understand that violation of any part of this code may be grounds for removal from membership. Members further attest that they understand that FANN asks members to:
(1) Not grow, plant, or sell species on the Florida Invasive Species Council (FISC) Category 1 List;
(2) Work to eliminate from inventory any plants that appear on the FISC Category 2 List;
(3) Avoid transplanting any threatened or endangered species from natural areas unless those species are in imminent danger of destruction;
(4) Identify as completely as possible what is known about plant origins so that customers can make environmentally informed purchase decisions. Native seed provenance is of utmost importance to ensure that plants sold as native are, in fact, grown from Florida-origin seed sources.

FANN actively promotes only native plants. Members selling non-native plants is not a problem; however, it is essential that these plants are clearly identified as non-native.

FANN and its conservation partners — the Florida Native Plant Society and Florida Wildflower Foundation — provide guidance in areas of plant identification and origin.

Important: Invasive non-native plants
FANN specifically requests that members regularly review their plant inventory against most recent Florida Invasive Species Council (FISC) List of Invasive Plant Species and University of Florida (UF) Institute for Food & Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) Assessment, and not sell species identified as invasive, in the regions where they are deemed invasive (e.g., North, Central, or South Florida).

Further, FANN strongly encourages members to annually monitor the most recent Florida Invasive Species Council “Watch List” and the UF IFAS Assessment for species predicted to be invasive. Plant species predicted by the UF IFAS Assessment to be a high invasion risk should be not be sold in the areas where the species is a predicted risk. FANN encourages members to eliminate these species from their inventories.

2025 update: Asclepias curassavica, Non-native Tropical Milkweed, also known as Bloodflower, Mexican Milkweed, and Scarlet Milkweed, and furthermore frequently confused in the trade with native Asclepias tuberosa, Butterfly Milkweed, has been identified by the Florida Invasive Species Council (FISC) as a Category II invasive species in all regions of Florida. FISC publishes a map of natural areas impacted by this plant. The UF IFAS Assessment currently identifies this plant as one to be used with caution in South Florida and managed to prevent escape, but the plant should be reassessed soon and this advisement may change. Central and South Florida assessments of this species are incomplete.

2024 update: per Board of Directors resolution, FANN recommends against the planting and sale of Asclepias curassavica, a non-native species that has widely naturalized and is believed by scientists to have disruptive and potentially longterm negative impacts on the health of the Monarch butterfly. FANN members have worked for several years to increase production of various native species of Asclepias (there are 21, but only a small number available in the trade), and strongly encourages the use of native Milkweeds along with a diversity of native wildflowers to support the Monarch and other insect species that nectar, pollinate and reproduce on these plants.

GENERAL POLICIES
Policy regarding the listing of native cultivars
Policy on the preservation & conservation of native plants
Policy on transplanting native plants from the wild

Definitions and Restrictions

About our Plant Listings
FANN lists and promotes only Florida native plants. Cultivars are listed as Florida native plants if they originate naturally within certain ecoregions as defined in our Listing of Cultivars policy.

FANN accepts and follows the definition of “Florida native plant” as adopted by the Florida Native Plant Society. With some exceptions, to specifically identify the nativity of a given species, FANN generally follows the Guide to the Vascular Plants of Florida, third edition, by Dr. Richard P. Wunderlin and Bruce F. Hansen, University Press of Florida. We also use the online Plant Atlas which accompanies this book. Exceptions are made in consultation with an in-house committee of our most senior members. Examples of exceptions include:

• FANN growers offer two varieties of native slash pine: Pinus elliotti var. elliotti (North Florida slash) and Pinus elliotti var. densa (South Florida slash).
• FANN lists Juniperus silicola and J. virginiana as separate species.
• FANN lists Quercus laurifolia and Q. hemisphaerica as separate species.

Where regional or local species variation occurs, FANN growers are encouraged to name varieties to indicate these variations until such time as the variety is recognized by taxonomists in an official flora of the state. Examples include Chrysobalanus icaco ‘Horizontal’ (Horizontal Cocoplum), Ulmus americana ‘Florida Population’ (Florida ecotype Elm), and Roystonia regia ‘Florida Population’ (Florida ecotype Royal Palms).

Member Programs
FANN Award Programs