invasive flora of the american southeast
These are not monsters. These are trees covered in kudzu. I was hanging out with some folks last week who, for some reason, asked me what the "vegetation" was like in the south. The first thing that came to mind, sadly, was kudzu. I don't know much about kudzu. But I know that it is invasive and I know that you can't ever get rid of it and I know that it covers trees like a leafy, gorgeous blanket and then, of course, it kills them. I know that kudzu is evil.
Kudzu won't stop at trees. It will eat your car:
It will eat your house:
It will even eat your old, rusty trailer:
But don't worry. It won't eat you. It will simply destroy everything you hold dear. So be careful when you head south. Or maybe check out Wikipedia and learn something real about kudzu. I just like these pictures.
P.S. Note the id stamp on the house-eating picture. UGA is the University of Georgia at Athens. The brilliant scholars of my birthstate are ON IT! The kudzu problem is as good as solved...
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 3:06 PM
3 Comments:
My [Southern] husband cites two main reasons he can never return to the south: fire ants and kudzu. I kind of like the new goat solution, myself.
Just from the time I was a little kid visiting N. Florida to my trips in the last couple of years, it's amazing how bad it is.
Kudzu is as far north as Maine. Kudzu has 180,000+ sites for recipes. Kudzu has 60 medicinal purposes in the orient, and studies are being published at Harvard for alcohol consumption, Canada for hangovers, and Bangkok for estrogen. Shurtleff has a supurb book on kudzu. www.kokudzu.com has methods to get rid of it without poisons.
gee, maybe it has taken over and choked off our native plants, but it shor is purty! i love kudzu!
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