The Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Never Truly Ate the South

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudzu-vine-ate-south-180956325/

by acdanger • 11 years ago

34 18 11 years ago

freshyill3• 11 years ago

Here in Maryland (certainly not quite the South), it's conspicuous along the DC Beltway. It has definitely gone from "hey, is that kudzu?" to "holy crap, there's a lot of kudzu on the Beltway." Still, I've never seen it in one of our densely forested parks, or anywhere else but along the highways.

moron4hire5• 11 years ago

I'm not sure what you mean by "certainly not quite the South". Maryland is the northernmost state of the South. The Mason-Dixon line, carving along the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware, is almost universally considered the demarcation between the North and the South. There are still several places in Maryland flying the Confederate Battle Flag. It's most certainly a part of the South.

jacobwil• 11 years ago

Maryland (at least around Baltimore and DC, in my experience) often feels like a no-region's-land: many Southerners will claim it's the North and Northerners will claim that it's the South. Maryland definitely feels like it's where the lines blur.

freshyill3• 11 years ago

Like I said, not quite the South. Geographically, it's below the Mason-Dixon Line, but's a pretty informal means of designating what's The South. Other than location, the state probably has more in common culturally with the northeastern states. And climate-wise, which is really the only thing that matters when it comes to kudzu, it's definitely not the South, even though summer here can be pretty oppressive.

jeffwass2• 11 years ago

American North Vs South is cultural, and there's no one clear designation.

Having lived in Maryland for 8 years, and 25 years north of the Mason Dizon line on the Northeast Corridor, and having travelled to all 48 contiguous states and visited the U.S. south extensively, I fully agree with the original posters assessment that it's not quite the south.

You bring up the Mason-Dixon Line, but why not the Civil War, another very clear North/South divide? Most Maryland soldiers fought for the Union during the Civil War. But as you said there are still some state parks named after General Lee.

Cuisine is another cultural aspect. Culinarily there's not much native Maryland cuisine that I'd associate with the south. Maryland is most famous for food associated with the Chesapeake Bay like crabs and seafood soups and stews. You'll find more places serving traditional southern foods like Chicken fried steak and BBQ, more than up North but not nearly as much as further South.

Accent-wise, there is a slight twinge that some native Marglanders have but it is nowhere near the southern accent you'd hear as you go further south into Virginia.

cafard• 11 years ago

I don't know. Frederick County feels to me a lot like Adams County, Pennsylvania; Garrett County likewise looks a lot like western Pennsylvania in places. Montgomery County is sort of generic suburbia. The Eastern Shore I imagine to be more southern than the rest.

rdtsc• 11 years ago

The more I investigate, the more I recognize that kudzu’s place in the popular imagination reveals as much about the power of American mythmaking, and the distorted way we see the natural world, as it does about the vine’s threat to the countryside.

When I was fifteen I came to US. We were driving around in the South and I remember being so fascinated by the Kudzu. I was saying how beautiful it is. The Americans told me what it is and how it spreads uncontrollably and how it is a not something beautiful but something horrible like a disease. Every time I see it now, I remember that conversation and how quickly my perception shifted due to it.

markdown• 11 years ago

I felt the same way about the African Tulip (all the trees with orange flowers in this photo taken in Fiji):

http://i.imgur.com/1CZ0FZ6.jpg

chiph• 11 years ago

Growing up in South Carolina, I had a classmate in high school that as part of his summer science project, attempted to extract ethanol from Kudzu. The plant was worthless even for that, as he couldn't get a drop out of it.

The fact that the local moonshiners weren't using it should have been a clue.

pvaldes• 11 years ago

Classical acceptance stage. Very common with invasive alien species.

Amezarak• 11 years ago

Well. I live in the south and the government (and private property owners) very aggressively spray and uproot kudzu. I always figured the slowed spread had more to do with that.

It is remarkable how fast it grows - there's a certain spot here where you can almost watch it grow up and over and on the powerlines in a very short span of time, until it is sprayed back and does it all over again.

flavor8• 11 years ago

Relatedly, http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/weed-whackers/ is a good read about the overhyped dangers of "invasives".

The Story of Kudzu, the Vine That Never Truly Ate the South

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