Fun Friday: Kudzu Meets Its Match

Filed in archive Fun on June 8, 2007

Photo - Josh Anderson for The New York Times

This has absolutely nothing to do with our topic. But then that's why we have Fun Fridays. I couldn't resist sharing this with my readers. Kudzu has become a scourge in the Southern U.S. The invading plant is from Asia. It was brought to the United States in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and then cultivated as an ornamental vine.

As a foreign transplant, there is nothing to naturally keep it in check. It grows at a phenomenal rate, up to one foot per day. I'm a northerner and first saw Kudzu on a visit to Athens, Georgia. I was amazed to see it literally blanket the landscape, swallowing trees and houses. And that was 30 years ago.

It's finally met its match. Not a superior plant or pestilent bug. But a hungry animal - a goat - as shared in this humorous article from the New York Time, In Tennessee, Goats Eat the 'Vine That Ate the South.'