Japanese climbing fern came to the US as an ornamental; it now spreads across at least 6 Southern states, climbing over trees and helping fire reach their crowns

While invasive plants may come and go, a handful will take root and stay there for a hundred years. According to a 2005 species review from the USDA Forest Service's Fire Effects Information System (FEIS) (the agency's standing reference on the species, last technically updated in 2025 but not revised with new fire research since), Japanese climbing fern has been present in Georgia since the early 1900s and has since spread through much of the South. While delicate and aesthetically pleasing, foresters see them differently.

The Japanese climbing fern is native to Asia. It was introduced as an ornamental plant and is now found in lower regions of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and North Carolina, along with central Florida, per the UF/IFAS Extension’s guide titled “Controlling Invasive Plants in North Florida Forests.” But can this vine affect how a forest burns?

A tidy backstory with some messy spread


The same FEIS review lists the plant more broadly across nine states, namely Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas, plus Puerto Rico, a wider footprint than the regional pockets described above. The review formally classifies the plant's status in these areas as "introduced," a label that describes where a species originates rather than how settled it has become; for a vine that has been reproducing and spreading on its own across the South for over a century, "introduced" may undersell just how established it now is.

Auburn University extension specialists Nancy Loewenstein and J. Ryan Mitchell noted in a 2022 article that since this is a climbing perennial vine which can grow up to 90 ft, the plant can become problematic. Its spores mainly spread via wind; however, they can be carried by pine straw, clothes, machinery, vehicles, and animals. It is classed as a Class B noxious weed in Alabama and cannot be introduced or grown in the state.

Why fire crews side-eye a vine

Vines that climb tree trunks can provide ladder fuels and cause crown fires, which can cause more damage than ground fires. This can be an issue in pine plantations. The evidence tying climbing ferns specifically to this risk is mixed and comes mostly from a related species: dense infestations of Old World climbing fern can carry small ground fires up into tree canopies and damage new growth, and in southern Florida, climbing fern has been associated with increased crown fire.

The picture for Japanese climbing fern and fire itself, however, remains genuinely incomplete, and that gap has not closed: as of the FEIS review, written in 2005 and not meaningfully updated since, no published studies had measured fire's direct effects on the species, and only a handful of studies had looked at the plant at all. What has been reported, without much elaboration, is that fire appears to favor the plant rather than suppress it: fire can top-kill the fronds and cause visible die-back, but the fern typically survives underground and regrows quickly from its rhizomes. Consistent with that, prescribed burning on its own proved ineffective at controlling the species in pine plantations in northern Florida. In short, fire doesn't reliably kill Japanese climbing fern, and may even help it along, which is why land managers don't rely on fire alone to control it. Early detection and physical removal remain the more dependable approach.

What it means beyond the forest

Beyond fire risk, the plant causes problems of its own in a forest understory: its dense growth shades out plants beneath it, and the thick mats it forms can smother seedlings trying to get established. According to Auburn, several endangered plant species throughout the Southeast are threatened by infestations. To help prevent the spread of invasive plants, it is good practice to clean equipment before leaving a site. Spores can be carried on clothing and equipment. The main lesson to learn may be that a plant chosen for its aesthetic properties in one century can cause issues with land management in the next. Researchers are still trying to determine how much this is related to fire.