TY - JOUR T1 - Journal Management of Biological Invasions JF - Journal Management of Biological Invasions Y1 - 2010 A1 - Filip Verloove SP - 1 EP - 5 KW - alien species KW - Digitaria violascens KW - Eleocharis pellucida KW - Juncus dichotomus KW - taxonomy KW - Vicia dalmatica AB - Misidentifications are an important but neglected problem in studies on plant invasions. This review shows how taxonomic education of staff and stakeholders is of great importance for correctly assessing threats provoked by alien plant species in field and literature based studies. Four randomly chosen recent examples (Digitaria violascens, Eleocharis pellucida, Juncus dichotomus and Vicia dalmatica) from Europe demonstrate that, as a result of an initial erroneous identification and/or confusion with similar harmless species, potentially noxious environmental weeds have been able to become fully naturalised. They act as “invaders in disguise” and therefore constitute a real problem for conservation management. VL - 1 UR - http://www.managementofbiologicalinvasions.net/index_file/Verloove2010.pdf ER -