Hardy kiwi (Actinidia arguta)

Common Names: Tara vine

Description: Introduced in Massachusetts in 1876 as an ornamental and for it's fruit.

Habit: Fast growing woody climbing vine that can grow over 20 feet per year.

Leaves: Alternate, oval, 3-5 inches long, dark green in color with sharply serrated margins and red petioles.

Stems: Twining, woody, smooth and light brown-red to grey-white in color. Chambered pith with soft spongy tissue at the center. Matures to brown-grey in color.

Flowers: Borne in clusters and about 1 in. in diameter, fragrant and white to pale green in color with purple anthers.

Fruit and seeds: Smooth-skinned, oval-shaped fruit about 1 inch long. Green or brown in color.

Habitat: Native to Japan, Korea, Northern China and the Russian Far East.

Reproduction: By seed.

Monitoring and rapid response: Hand pull smaller vines and seedings making sure to remove all underground runners to prevent resprouting. Cutting is necessary and must be paired with herbicide to be effective. Stem nodes in contact with soil with resprout. It can also be effectively controlled using any of several readily available general use herbicides such as glyphosate when applied as foliar spray, cut stump, or basal bark treatments.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from the Northeastern IPM Center and the Lower Hudson Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management.

Individual species images that appear with a number in a black box are courtesy of the Bugwood.org network (http://www.invasive.org). Individual photo author credits may not be included due to the small display size of the images and subsequent difficulty of reading the provided text. All other images appear courtesy of Google (http://images.google.com).

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