A vine along the beaches of North Carolina and South Carolina is causing a large amount of trouble. The vine is quite harmless looking and does not look as though it would cause any problems. The vine is beach vitex. It is a spicy smelling plant that has grayish green leaves all year, and has purple flowers in It is also a climbing plant.
Scientists brought beach vitex from Korea to the United States in the mid-1980s. They thought it would keep the beach sand from blowing away, since it has wide branching roots. It also grows well with salty water in its environment, and it can be completely dried out and still survive. It seemed to be the perfect plant for the Carolinas. People were buying it from greenhouses and planting it themselves. …show more content…
It grows far too quickly!! In the Carolinas, it crowds out the slower-growing native plants. If a beach vitex plant begins to sprout at the beginning of the summer, it is a -______ plant by the end of summer. Long runners or stems of the plant branch along the ground. They root into the sand, and that forms a hugh and dense mat of branches that grows outward in many directions.
This widespread growth of beach vitex is disturbing to the scientists, because they want the native plants of Carolina to remain there. Plants and animals of a specific environment work together in a very complex manner. If native plants grow well, then the birds, insects and other animals that have learned to get along with these plants are able to continue the building of their homes, and the raising of their young.
The scientists who brought beach vitex to the Carolinas thought they were bringing a solution, but they had no idea that beach vitex would grow so well in its new environment. Even though the plant keeps the sand in place in Korea, people are not sure that it does the same thing in the Carolinas. THe only thing the scientists are sure of if that beach vitex is killing the native plants of North Carolina and South