EditorialMud-stained kudzu marks the high water mark of Lotts Creek in Perry County, Kentucky, Sunday, July 31, 2022. (Austin Anthony/The New York Times)
EditorialKudzu grows over the pumps at an abandoned gas station near a former mountaintop coal removal site in Martin County, Ky., Oct. 15, 2021. (Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times)
EditorialKuzu or kudzu flower and leaf, Pueraria lobata, and rukousou or cypress vine, Ipomoea quamoclit flowers. Handcoloured woodblock print by Kono Bairei from Senshu no Hana (One Thousand Varieties of Flowers), Bunkyudo, Kyoto, 1900.