Mikania micrantha

Common Name: mile-a-minute

Family: Asteraceae

Common Synonyms: none

USDA Hardiness Zone: 11

Growth Habit: Vine

Origin: Tropical America, including Puerto Rico.

FISC Category: -

FDACS Listed Noxious Weed: Yes

Introduction Date: 2009

IFAS Assessment:

• North: PROHIBITED
• Central: PROHIBITED
• South: PROHIBITED

Description

Twining, perennial, vigorous, much-branched vine. Stems 5 ribbed, pubescent or glabrous, internodes 7.5-21.5 cm long. Leaves opposite, ovate-deltoid, 6-15 x 3-9 cm, base cordate, apex acuminate, glabrous on both sides, 3-5 nerved from base, petiole 3 - 7 cm long. Inflorescence an axillary panicled corymb. Flowers 4 per cluster, involucral bracts 4, oblong to obovate, acute, green, 1-3 mm long, corolla 5 lobed, white, often with a purple tinge, 4-5 mm long. Fruit an achene 2-3 mm long, narrowly oblong, 4-angled, black, glabrous, pappus hair-like, in a single series, connate at base, 3 mm long, white at first, becoming reddish brown.

Habitat

Ruderal areas, edges of natural communities.

Comments

Rampant grower. Reported in 2009 from Dade County. Seeds wind-dispersed. An excellent EDRR target.

Control Methods

• Manual: Mechanical: weeding, uprooting and digging.
• Chemical: Foliar (3% glyphosate, IFAS).
• Biological: NA

Control Notes

NA

References

Asia-Pacific Forest Invasive Species Network. Newsletter Volume 8, 2007. http://www.fs.fed.us/global/topic/invasives/feb2007.pdf. Accessed on December 13, 2013.

IFAS, Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants. 2013. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ag338. Accessed on December 13, 2013.

University of Georgia - Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health. 2013. Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States: mile-a minute (Mikania micrantha Kunth). http://www.invasive.org/browse/subthumb.cfm?sub=4555. Accessed on December 13, 2013.