POLECATS FOUND IN MY BACKYARD

NOTE: CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE IT The insidious invasive vines that keep returning to invade my privacy hedges. This cat here formerly known to me as a stink vine has showed up again in my shrubbery. It starts out slow then before you know it engulfs the host shrub . It seems common around these parts and I have heard it called many different names usually by me and always involving profanity.




This vine gets small yellow flowers and produces orange seedpods. Inside the seedpods are extremely Bright red seeds.



If you pull on the vine to disentangle it from whatever it has tangled around it releases an pungent stink odor. It smells to me like sour eggs dipped in skunk. This vine readily transfers the funk odor to you and your clothes if you touch it.



No matter how many times I have pulled it out of the bushes it returns.

After researching what this cat is I finally found it. This is a Balsam Apple Vine or Cundeamor. Or Momordica Balsamina if that's the way you roll. It is a member of the Cucumber family and can be found from Florida to Texas .

I think that it is a pest and belongs in the polecat category. Good information on this stinky invader can be found here http://okeechobee.ifas.ufl.edu/news%20columns/Balsam%20Apple.htm .
Check it out and if you do be sure to go to the very bottom of the page in the references where it shows several country's postage stamps with this polecats picture on it. That to me is a hoot. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The second polecat on my list is this innocent looking joker. I found the info on this one too. It is called an Asparagus Plumosis or Plumosa fern and is extremely invasive. I have them in my hedges all the time where they wrap around the host and starve it of light.



Apparently the only way to get rid of this Plumosa fern vine is to pull it up from the ground by it's roots. The only problem is that since the beginning of time no human being has been found who is capable of pulling a plumosa vine from the ground. It's the equivalent of pulling rebar steel rod out of hardened concrete, just can't be done. So I just cut the vine with some wire cutters as close to the ground as I can get and put a curse on the remaining root .

A word of caution these vines are tough as leather. They have sharp edges and spines that will slice open a hand with ease. So If you see one of these polecats in your garden be careful.



I suspect these fern vines could be attractive growing in the right place. Trouble is mine never come up in the right place.---------------------sanddune------------------