Science Memes @mander.xyz fossilesque @mander.xyz 2mo ago

English Ivy

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I think the vines in the second photo are kudzu tho
- Kudzu is some wild stuff, one vine tendril grows a foot a day and it kills entire forests.
  
  Maybe we could start rolling it up into balls and burying it for carbon sequestering. I mean it's just an incredible nuisance otherwise.
- Definitely. OP is clueless.
  
  English Ivy happily spreads too and will also smother natives.
  
  thatspartofthejoke.jpg
  
  English ivy may grow better in Kentucky soil than Kent chalk, but I'm not familiar with that in the way I am kudzu.
- Oh in that case Kakugo shiro
Too big to fail
- Oddly satisfying
  
  It's like wallpaper, but peelable.
- Mrs. Doubtfire voice "Hellooo!"
Kudzu was the last bioweapons unit of the Union army in the US civil war. It never surrendered, it is still fighting the American South, and winning the guerilla war.
- I wish it luck on the south.
  
  -Californian
- Reminds me of tumbleweeds, which may as well be a Soviet bioweapon.
I'll leave this here, as I'm particularly bothered by the weird megamyth of kudzu in the US, as is evidenced but the other comments.

English ivy is actually a generally bigger threat but it never gets any real attention.

I will concede that the image above is kudzu tho.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudzu-vine-ate-south-180956325/
Playing whack a mole with my neighbours ivy. Keeps popping up on my side of the fence. Fuck whoever brought it to Australia.
- I'm playing whack a mole with my own ivy. Fuck the prior house owners for letting it get out of hand. I got all of it from the trees and the side of the house but it always grows back. I'm still finding sprouts from thick woody vines that have been there forever apparently. I tried removing it from the fence but realized very quickly that it's the only thing holding it together. 😒
  
  And fuck the English for bringing it over (we both know it was them, even their plants are colonizers).
  
  Same. I have a fence that's barely still standing now that I removed the ivy. I've been pulling it and spraying it for several years now. I know I'll never win, but I'm doing my best to keep it in check. The most painful part is when I go to garden centers and see it for sale. It makes me want to cry.
What I don't get is why we don't eat kudzu.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu
- IIRC a lot of it has at some point been sprayed with super toxic herbicide to try and kill it off.
  
  Don't quote me on that though I'm just quoting a Wendigoon video from memory
- It's difficult to eat your way through an invasive species. Himalayan Balsam is also edible but it's thriving in the UK.
  
  In fact edibility is often the reason these things are so invasive, it's why American Signal crayfish are over in the UK.
  
  Texas: Hold my beer.
  
  https://www.chron.com/life/wildlife/article/lionfish-texas-gulf-19717247.php
  
  (Also Texas: Have you tried hunting the kudzu from a helicopter using automatic weapons?)
- Because Crake is saving it for some special project at Rejoov.
  
  I hate (and am terrified) that I understood this reference. That series is horrifying.
Kudzu CONSUME
Nah it’s pretty intent on covering the whole of England too tbh. Good for the bees in September tho ☺️
- Near rivers it has to contend with Himalayan Balsam, and the bees love that stuff too.
  
  Yeah I quite like the ol’ Himalayan balsam to be honest - very popular with the bumble bees. Gets a bad rap in the uk because it’s supposedly ‘invasive’, but I take rather a dim view of that kind of talk to be sure.
Kudzu is Chinese arrowroot tho?

~~Science~~ uninformed memes
Verbascum thapsus in Europe (nice medicinal plant):
- Verbascum thapsus in Hawaii (alien mutant invasion):
Maybe it's just me, but the second one in my brain gets voiced by LazerPig to the backing of Rule Britannia

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