Kudzu first appeared in the US at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. It became so popular that by the 1940s, there were even festivals with Kudzu queens being crowned. But by the '50s, kudzu was a nuisance.
Because of its rapid growth, Kudzu quickly overtakes other indigenous plants and trees, weighing them down and smothering them. Even large trees are no match for Kudzu. Today, Kudzu is known as “the vine that ate the South.” And in Philadelphia, where it was first introduced, it grows wild all along the edges of roads and highways, even overtaking railroad tracks and poles. In the Summer months, it has verdant appearance. But in the winter months its tangle of dead tendrils, still clutching to the plants and trees it has overtaken, reveal themselves as ghost-like creatures; land-dwelling sea monsters, clutching their prey even in death.