2024 Edition • Get the App • Cite this Page
X

Colors

Data mode

Account

Login
Sign up

Collapse this

Support the Flora of the Southeastern US

2024 has been a banner year for making the best flora we can imagine. We've created:
With financial support from people like you, we are aiming even higher in 2025. Together we can accomplish all this: Vote on our 2025 priorities
  • Add Global Conservation Ranks (GRanks) vote
  • Professional graphic keys (polyclaves) to individual families/genera vote
  • 2 new FloraQuest apps: Florida & Mid-South vote
  • Image overlays highlighting diagnostic characters with arrows vote
  • iNaturalist integration in FloraQuest vote
Write-in vote: vote
We've set a goal of recruiting 200 ongoing supporters to donate $15 or more each month in 2025. Please help us reach this goal and make next year's flora even better:
Donate $15 per month
(0.2¢/heliophily index)
Donate $30 per month
(0.4¢/heliophily index)
Donate $50 per month
(amazing!)
Donate another
or one-time amount
Copy permalink to share

*Pueraria montana (Loureiro) Merrill var. lobata (Willdenow) Maesen & S.M. Almeida ex Sanjappa & Predeep. Kudzu. Phen: Jul-Oct. Hab: Roadsides, waste areas. Dist: Native of e. Asia.

Origin/Endemic status: E. and se. Asia

Taxonomy Comments: Two other varieties occur in e. Asia.

Other Comments: Kudzu was strongly promoted in the 1920's and 1930's in the Southeastern United States as a stabilizer of eroded areas. Hundreds of Kudzu Clubs formed, and Kudzu Songbooks were published. It is now notorious as a weed and symbol of the South. Despite its notoriety in the popular press, kudzu is an ecologically relatively trivial (though conspicuous) weed, since it rarely produces viable seeds in our area, and generally does not invade high quality natural areas. The thickened rhizome can weigh as much as 150 kg, and is the source of a high quality cooking starch prized in Asia. The purple flowers smell like artificial grape flavoring. The leaves are very frost-sensitive.

Synonymy ⓘ: = Ar, FNA11.1, K1, K3, K4, Mi, NcTx, NE, NY, Tn, Va, WH3, Isely (1998), Ward (1998); = Pueraria lobata (Willd.) Ohwi – C, F, G, GrPl, Pa, RAB, SE3, Tx, W, WV; = Pueraria thunbergiana (Siebold & Zucc.) Benth. – S, Tat; < Pueraria montana (Lour.) Merr. – Il

Links to other floras: = Pueraria montana var. lobata - FNA11.1

Show in key(s)

Show parent genus

Wetland Indicator Status:

  • Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain: FACU (name change)
  • Eastern Mountains and Piedmont: UPL (name change)
  • Great Plains: UPL (name change)
  • Midwest: UPL (name change)
  • Northcentral & Northeast: UPL (name change)

Heliophily ⓘ: 6

Your browser does not support SVGs

Hover over a shape, letter, icon, or arrow on the map for definition or see the legend.

image of plant© Bruce A. Sorrie | Original Image ⭷
image of plant© Gary P. Fleming | Original Image ⭷
image of plant© Scott Ward | Original Image ⭷
image of plant© Richard & Teresa Ware CC-BY-NC, permission granted to NCBG | Original Image ⭷
image of plant© Richard & Teresa Ware CC-BY-NC, permission granted to NCBG | Original Image ⭷
image of plant© Alan Cressler: Pueraria montana, Noonday Creek, upstream of Highway 92, Cherokee County, Georgia 1 by Alan Cressler source | Original Image ⭷
image of plant© Joey Shaw source | Original Image ⭷

Feedback

See something wrong or missing on about Pueraria montana var. lobata? Let us know here: (Please include your name and email if at all complicated so we can clarify if needed.) We greatly appreciate feedback, and will include updates from you in our next webapp update, which can take a few months.