Kudzu

For other uses, see Kudzu (disambiguation).
"葛" redirects here. For the surname, see Ge (surname).

Kudzu smothering trees in Atlanta, Georgia, US

Kudzu (/ˈkuːdzu, ˈkʊd-, ˈkʌd-/), also called Japanese arrowroot or Chinese arrowroot,[1][2] is a group of climbing, coiling, and trailing deciduous perennial vines native to much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands,[2] but invasive in many parts of the world, primarily North America.

The vine densely climbs over other plants and trees and grows so rapidly that it smothers and kills them by blocking most of the sunlight and taking root space.[3] The plants are in the genus Pueraria, in the pea family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. The name is derived from the Japanese name for the plant East Asian arrowroot, (Pueraria montana var. lobata), kuzu (クズ/葛).[4][note 1] Where these plants are naturalized, they can be invasive and are considered noxious weeds. The plant is edible, but often sprayed with herbicides.[3]

  1. ^ USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "​Pueraria montana (Lour.) Merr.​". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
  2. ^ a b "Pueraria montana var. lobata". Germplasm Resources Information Network. Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference alabama was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "kudzu". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  5. ^ James Curtis Hepburn (1872). A Japanese-English And English-Japanese Dictionary (2nd ed.). American Presbyterian mission press. p. 277. Archived from the original on 1 January 2016. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  6. ^ Vance, Timothy J. (2008). The Sounds of Japanese. Cambridge University Press. pp. 85–6. ISBN 978-0-5216-1754-3.
  7. ^ Labrune, Laurence (2012). The Phonology of Japanese. Oxford University Press. pp. 64–5. ISBN 978-0-19-954583-4.
  8. ^ "くず". Daijirin. Weblio. Retrieved 5 October 2017.


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