In its native range, the sycamore is a natural component of birch ("Betula" sp.), beech ("Fagus" sp.) and fir ("Abies" sp.) forests. It readily invades disturbed habitats such as forest plantations, abandoned farmland and brownfield land, railway lines and roadsides verges, hedgerows, native and semi-natural woodland and, in New Zealand, high country tussock grassland. As an introduced, invasive species it may degrade the laurel forest in Madeira and Portugal and is a potential threat to the rare endemic Madeiran orchid, "Dactylorhiza foliosa".