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Originally planted as an ornamental vine, Hardy Kiwi (Actinidia arguta) is now exhibiting invasive qualities and having a deleterious impact on habitat, biodiversity, and resiliency. It is overtaking forests in Berkshire County, Massachusetts; Long Island, New York; and Morristown, New Jersey. For that reason, the vine has biologists and conservationists alarmed. In response, various groups from across the region—including BEAT and Mass Audubon—are banding together to stop this invasion before it becomes uncontrollable.

View BEAT’s Kiwi Handbook here. (For a print-quality file, please contact team@thebeatnews.org.)

Beginning as what appears to be innocuous ground cover, hardy kiwi grows up and over itself and other plants, establishing a “mat” of vines several feet thick. These mats block sunlight from reaching the forest floor and out-compete native ground cover. From there, vines shoot up to the tops of trees, creating what looks like “curtains”. These curtains pull trees to the forest floor and create significant gaps in the canopy. This combination of thick mats, curtains, and large canopy openings is called an “amphitheater” because it looks like large, open-air venues.

Kiwi in Pittsfield, MA, just starting to “mat” and create “curtains”

Traditionally thought to be non-invasive due to its lack of distribution, mapping efforts by BEAT and Mass Audubon provide unequivocal evidence of the species dispersing by jumping spatial gaps. According to Mass Audubon (2011), “Hardy Kiwi fruits are eaten by raccoons. Other mammals, and possibly large birds such as turkey and ruffled grouse, are also expected to consume the fruits and disperse the seeds. If both staminate and pistillate plants are present, and seeds are animal dispersed—especially bird dispersed—fruits could easily jump large spatial gaps.” It may also spread vegetatively (Weatherbee, 1996). These methods of dispersal allow both rapid and widespread dispersal. This is of large concern if management is to stay ahead of hardy kiwi and protect any other vegetation or ground cover underneath it (Mass Audubon, 2011).

For more information on hardy kiwi, please refer to the links below. If you think you know of an unmapped hardy kiwi population, please contact BEAT.

History and Origin

Morphology and Distribution

Management Options

Sources:

Mass Audubon. (2011, March). Invasive Plant Pest Alert: Hardy Kiwi — a.k.a. Tara Vine. Retrieved March 14, 2017.

Weatherbee, P.B. (1996). Flora of Berkshire Country, Massachusetts, The Study Press, Inc., Dalton, MA, 52 p.

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