Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Interesting Plant/Animal/Insect

One of the most interesting plants to me is the Kudzu plant (Pueraria lobata). Known as the "Plant that ate the South", Kudzu is a plant most southerners are extremely familiar with. It's explosive growth in the South US has led it to be one of the first organisms to be marked as "invasive", and was originally introduced to the US in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition as a way to control soil erosion. While it's very good at that task, it's much better at choking out every plant around it, completely engulfing cars, houses, streets, telephone poles, and anything that sits still for more than a few days.

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