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Sometimes protecting the environment means taking down trees.

With the help of a state biologist, the Izaak Walton League of America's Rockville chapter has spent two years rooting out invasive plants at its 53-acre headquarters in Germantown.

The chapter contacted the Maryland Department of Natural Resources' Landowner Incentive Program, a competitive grant program for private landowners funded by the U.S. Plant and Wildlife Service, to help rid its property of invasive plants threatening the survival of native species. The program aims to protect habitats that are home to the 455 plants and 152 animals that are rare, threatened, endangered or otherwise in need of conservation in the state, such as bog turtles, Delmarva fox squirrels and dwarf wedge mussels.

"Some of our rarest species are found on private lands," said natural resources biologist Linh Phu, who received an Honor Roll Award at IWLA's national convention this summer for her work in helping the Rockville chapter develop a four-year plan for controlling its invasive plants. "The state isn't just a patchwork of private and public land — we look at habitats."

The habitats contained in Izaak Walton League's property, which borders Seneca Creek State Park, were in trouble. The site was fairly infested with non-native plants, Phu said, including garlic mustard, Japanese honeysuckle, spotted knapweed and, most pervasively, six acres of Ailanthus altissima, also known as "the tree of heaven."

"It is all over the place, and once you know it, it's very easy to spot," chapter President Miles Greenbaum said of the tree of heaven. "They really take over. They drive out all the native trees, and it's a worthless tree and it grows like mad."

Ailanthus altissima is native to China and was introduced to the United States in 1784 by a Pennsylvania gardener, according to the National Park Service's Web site. The trees grow rapidly and can reach 80 feet tall, according to NPS, and they crowd out native species and can damage pavement and building foundations in urban areas.

The dense Ailanthus altissima stands were treated with herbicide last year, Greenbaum said, and this year volunteers have met regularly to cut down the trees and pull up the smaller species by hand. Once the problem areas are cleared, the chapter plans to plant native species to keep the invasives from returning.

"We have a responsibility for [our land] and we take that responsibility very seriously," Greenbaum said. "We still have a lot of work to do — it's an ongoing thing. If we're lucky, the areas we clear and replant will become stable, but the invasives will continue to invade. It's something that we'll have to stay on top of forever."

Reaching the heavens

More about Ailanthus altissima, an invasive plant also called "the tree of heaven":

Inspired the tree in Betty Smith's novel "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."

A single tree can produce as many as 325,000 seeds a year.

Brought to California by Chinese workers during the 1849 gold rush.

Produces a toxin in its bark and leaves that is used as a traditional herbal medicine in China and is being studied as a possible herbicide.

Commonly available in U.S. nurseries since 1840.

Sources: National Park Service, International Union for Conservation of Nature's Invasive Species Specialist Group