It's been known to snap hydro poles, swallow buildings and smother forests.

Now a plant described as the vegetable form of cancer has invaded Canada from the United States, where it's been dubbed "the vine that ate the South."

Kudzu, a native of east Asia, has spread into southern Ontario and one expert predicts British Columbia and Quebec will be the next targets for the voracious vine.

The United States spends an estimated US$500 million per year in its war against the leafy plant, which suffocates crops, damages power lines and blankets timber stands.

Scientists believe warmer temperatures have stretched the greenery's range to Canadian soil.

"This is the first sighting in all of Ontario, and as far as we know, Canada," said Rachel Gagnon, co-ordinator of the Ontario Invasive Plant Council.

In the United States, kudzu has also been called the "mile-a-minute vine" and the "foot-a-night vine."

"I've also heard it been called the cancer of plants, just because of the way it moves and just kills everything in its path," Gagnon said from Peterborough, Ont.

She said a botanist working near the town of Leamington recently spotted kudzu growing along the shores of Lake Erie.

Scientists are analyzing the greenery and deciding how to dispose of the patch, which stretches 120 metres along the shoreline and is 50 metres deep.

Gagnon has monitored the plant's march northward through the United States, but was surprised that it arrived in Canada this quickly.

Studies show that temperatures below -20C can kill the plant's roots.

"If it survives the winter, then obviously it's going to keep growing next summer and continue to spread," she said.

As annual temperatures continue to inch higher, one expert says British Columbia and Quebec will eventually join Ontario in providing a favourable climate for a kudzu invasion.

"Quebec and Ontario are the big two," University of Toronto ecology professor Rowan Sage said Wednesday.

"But southern Ontario would be by far the bull's-eye for Canada."

Invasive species, such as the mountain pine beetle that has taken a chunk out of Western Canada's forests, threaten native flora and fauna in ecosystems across the country.

Kudzu is difficult to control and costly to remove.

"It just has this extremely pervasive and aggressive growth that captures a landscape and converts it to kudzu," Sage said.

"We call them 'kudzuscapes.' "

The thick coverage chokes food sources for wildlife.

"A kudzu stand is kind of like a desert as far as animals are concerned," said Sage, who began studying kudzu about 20 years ago.

The plant also releases nitrogen into the air and water and can carry the soybean rust disease, which damages crops.

Still, concerted kudzu control methods, including root removal, herbicides and allowing farm animals to munch on the plant, can be effective.

Kudzu can creep at a foot-per-day rate and engulfs 500 square kilometres annually, he said.

Sage said estimates have found that about 300,000 square kilometres of land in the United States has been buried by the vine.

But the relationship between Americans and kudzu hasn't always been hostile.

The plant was first introduced to the country in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.

Farmers planted it extensively throughout the eastern United States as a means of limiting erosion and feeding cattle. Others made clothing from its fibre and extracted starch from its giant sweet-potato-like roots.

But kudzu began to proliferate on abandoned farms as more and more people left their properties and moved to the cities.

By the 1950s, it was no longer welcome and measures were put in place to try and control it.

The plant, ubiquitous in parts of the U.S. Southeast, has become part of the culture.

Sage, who lived in Georgia, said it's common to see old farmhouses, factories and cars engulfed by kudzu.

He said southerners have long believed that kudzu patches were dark places full of "creepy crawlers," like snakes, spiders and lizards.

The long, woody vines were also thought of as ideal hideouts for fugitives and escaped convicts.

But kudzu has an upside. It can be used to brew tea and serves as a traditional medicine to fight alcoholism.

Sage said its starch makes delicious gravies and the plant itself can be turned into biofuel.

Gagnon said she's aware of kudzu's possibilities, but still insists that people contact Ontario's invading species hotline at 1-800-563-7711 if they spot it.

"There definitely are some positives ... but you don't want people planting it all over," she said.