Earlier this year I was driving home along the interstate, and I was stunned at the sheer number of wisterias that were flowering among the border walls and trees. The blooms were cascading down in scores of purple waterfalls. You couldn't drive a quarter of a mile without seeing another patch bursting out of the branches. I've never seen anything like it despite living around DC for the past thirty years, which is strange when you consider that the American wisteria (Wisteria frutescens) is native to this area. In order to explain why, we need to talk about another plant.

Kudzu (Pueraria montana) was introduced to the United States in the middle of the 19th century as an ornamental vine, but it really began spreading in the early 20th century when it was planted by the government to attempt to control soil erosion. Kudzu grows rapidly, out-competing native plants and damaging buildings that it grows on. It is the vine that ate the south, leaving swaths of land desolate and choked by its vines. My whole life, the boundaries of forests have been defined by kudzu, vast mats of emerald leaves stretching from the ground to the treetops, denying anything else from living there.

But things are beginning to change. Purple wisteria flowers cascading where there was once nothing but kudzu. After decades of the government's efforts at controlling the invasive vine there is a small hope blooming at the edge of forests. There is still much work to be done, and the work will never end, but knowing that it can be successful makes that fact a bit more bearable.