The Invasive Warriors Battle Has Been Postponed!  

Asiatic Bittersweet:

First introduced to the US from China in the 1860s as an ornamental vine, Bittersweet eventually escaped gardens and spread quickly into wooded areas. As seen in picture #1 & 2, taken along Glenmore way, this green, leafy vine uses other trees, in this case a pine tree, as scaffolding to climb quickly to the top to gain full access to the sun, covering the tree’s branches and preventing it from photosynthesizing. As the vine grows, it becomes thick, (picture 3) often similar in size to a tree branch, weighing down and eventually breaking weakened trees. In the fall, Bittersweet’s berries are orange and yellow (picture 4) and can be spread by wildlife and birds, as they eat them, or by humans who use them in decoration!

Kudzu:

Introduced in 1876 at the Philadelphia exposition, this vine was later popularized by the US Dept. of agriculture in the 1930’s to reduce soil erosion. It grows a foot/day and a vine can reach 100 ft. in length, Kudzu is the vine that ate the South as it now covers >5 million acres. It climbs up and completely covers a tree’s canopy, shrouding the tree in thick leafy vine until the tree, looking like a monster in a horror film, suffocates and dies. This is what you see killing the trees on Rt. 250 and I-64. (picture 3) Charlottesville city has started to remove Kudzu along John Warner parkway.