Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) has arrived as a permanent resident. Twenty-five research-grade sightings across the Boston region since early June — from Wellesley through the inner suburbs — suggest that egg masses overwintered locally for the first time. Until recently, these speckled insects appeared only as summer visitors drifting north from established populations farther south. Now they are here year-round.

The presence of tree-of-heaven throughout the area has provided the foothold. This weedy woody plant, which thrives in disturbed ground across suburban Boston, is the lanternfly's preferred host. From here, the insects are beginning to move onto native fruit and timber trees — apples, maples — that formed the backbone of the New England orchard and forest economy for centuries. What begins as an incidental pest on an invasive weed threatens to become an agricultural problem.