Invasive Species Flourishes

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Editor,

Recently I have come across an interesting plant. It is growing in Moulton Park, on private property, in areas that we call greenbelts, especially in Arch Beach Heights, and along Laguna Canyon Road, across from businesses and homes.

It is a wild cucumber, but it does not produce cucumbers.  Instead it produces an oval pod that is covered in long needles that are painful to touch unless wearing leather or heavier gloves. Its root looks like a giant jicama root, weighing up to 10 lbs and more.  Like a cucumber vine it crawls and covers.  This vine easily and quickly covers bushes seven or eight feet tall and crawls on the ground and covers low growing vegetation, its growing and spreading speed is impressive. It is so thick that one can hardly see the vegetation underneath. Can native animals access food/shelter in the vegetation that is covered by it?  In all the years I lived in Laguna, I have never seen this plant in Arch Beach Heights. Have you heard about Kudzu vines in the south and southeast? This vine can cover a house in a few weeks if no one removes the vine.

I have approached city staff and nothing can be done as it is not on the list of invasive plants. I have also been in contact with Laguna Canyon Foundation and they claim it is a native and will die off in June. But he did not address the prolific seeds in those pods and how fast the vine will grow next year or the following years and spread quickly in your neighborhood.

I conjure our verdant areas covered in this vine and …..well, I will leave it to your imagination.

 

Ganka Brown, Laguna Beach

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