When I deviate from my original topic because I find some new site that MUST be shared, I will declare a Road Trip on the Information Superhighway. You will have to follow the links to investigate for yourself. Briefly, kudzu is a vine native to Asia that was brought to the United States in the late 1800's from Japan. Grown for a while as an ornamental, some people decided that it could do wonders to control erosion. This was around the same time that the cane toads were let loose on Australia and the mongooses freed in Hawaii.
Human beings do a lot of leaping prior to looking when it comes to the environment.
As was the case with those other famous misguided cures, kudzu quickly became the problem rather than the solution. Kudzu grows so well that its vines can travel a foot a day. You can actually watch it grow. It grows and grows and grows, choking out the native vegetation and covering everything in site. On the up side, all of this growing is South of the Mason Dixon Line, so we in less hospitable climes are safe.