Jack Anthony: This abandoned cabin is typical of kudzu-covered houses seen in Georgia and other Southern states.; Kudzu

Forget about killer bees. Kudzu is coming.

The fast-twining scourge of the old South has been spotted in Western Oregon, far out of its usual range. The discovery is raising antennae among weed experts across the country.

"You want to get rid of that real quick, and don't be half-hearted about it," said Jim H. Miller, a kudzu expert at Alabama's Auburn University. "That is a major pest to be loose in the Pacific Northwest."

Kudzu is a climbing vine that grows so fast is has been known to swallow incautiously parked cars. Throughout the Southeast, from Georgia to Mississippi, a thick, green cocoon of kudzu swathes abandoned houses, barns and fences.

Growing at the rate of a foot a day, it climbs power poles and turns high-tension transmission towers into giant green monsters.

The kudzu patch found in August along a Clackamas County highway was only about half an acre, but it was the first time "the plant that ate the South" had been found west of Texas.

"We don't know whether a passing truck dropped a seed, or someone planted it by mistake," said Bruce Pokarney, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture. "It covered a steep bank alongside the highway and had already completely engulfed two big oak trees."

Oregon officials are still trying to figure out how to get rid of the patch, which is alongside Highway 99 between the towns of Canby and Aurora. Meanwhile, they've alerted neighboring states, including Washington.

"We have not seen kudzu anywhere in Washington, but we're aware of the Oregon incident and we're certainly keeping an eye out," said Lisa Lantz, executive director of the state's Noxious Weed Control Board. If kudzu were established here, "it could definitely be a problem," she said.

A native of southeast Asia, the voracious vine was introduced into this country at the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia by a well-meaning delegation of Japanese gardeners.

Charmed by its broad green leaves and fragrant purple flowers, Southerners planted it around porches to provide shade. During the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps planted tens of millions of kudzu plants to contain soil erosion, and it was touted as cheap fodder for animals. For a time, the Soil Conservation Service even paid farmers to plant it.

Big mistake.

Lacking any natural predators, kudzu quickly blanketed the South, overwhelming and killing competing plants - even tall pine trees - by twining around them and choking off light.

Kudzu now covers an estimated 7 million acres, mostly in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, but also up the Atlantic coast as far as Pennsylvania and as far west as Oklahoma and Texas.

"I was truly sorry to hear about the Oregon infestation, but I was not surprised," said Miller, the Alabama forest ecologist. "Considering your hospitable climate and the way people carry things around, I have expected this for some time."

In Asia, he said, kudzu grows all the way up to 45 degrees north latitude -roughly the latitude of the Oregon-Washington border. On the east coast of the U.S., isolated patches have been found as far north as Nova Scotia.

"I'm keenly interested in how it got to Oregon," Miller said. "That's an awfully long way for a bird to carry a seed, and kudzu does not germinate well from seeds anyway. I suspect there was human agency involved."

Unwary Northerners sometimes carry kudzu home with them, thinking it's pretty, he said. And a lot of old agricultural literature still describes the weed as excellent ground cover.

"As recently as three years ago, I got a request for seeds from a farmer in the Columbia Gorge," said Miller. The farmer was dissuaded.

"What troubles me about this Oregon case," Miller said, "is that where one patch is discovered, there are probably more that haven't been found."

Kudzu was declared a federally regulated noxious weed in 1997, and its transportation is supposed to be strictly controlled.

Tell that to the kudzu. This weed grows so fast it transports itself - at the rate of 120,000 additional acres a year. It sends arm-thick roots as deep as 12 feet, making it virtually impossible to eradicate, even by plowing.

Southerners have developed a sense of humor, even a fondness, for the twining nuisance. There are recipes for kudzu jelly, French-fried kudzu leaves and kudzu tea. A popular rockabilly band is called the Kudzu Kings.

Northwest agricultural officials are not amused. They are dolefully familiar with the history of Scotch broom, introduced into the area as an ornamental plant in the 1870s and now a pervasive pest.

So how big a threat is kudzu?

It depends, said Lantz, the state weed expert.

There is nothing in the area's climate that would preclude kudzu from thriving here, she said. In fact, according to the USDA, kudzu grows best where winters are mild, temperatures rise above 80 in the summer and annual rainfall is 40 inches or more - pretty much a picture of the Northwest.

"But one of the hard things in this business is making predictions," Lantz said.

Some invasive plants may lie low for a long time. Megamelanus spartini, a weed that fouls waterways, was introduced here as a lily-pond ornamental in the 1890s, but did not become a pest until nearly a hundred years later, Lantz noted.

Nevertheless, she said, if kudzu were found here, "we would certainly make a major effort to eradicate it."

Speed is essential in controlling kudzu, said Miller.

"The longer it has been in the ground, the deeper it puts down its roots and the harder it is to eradicate," he said. "The usual method is to mow and then repeatedly apply a course of herbicides. Sometimes overgrazing works, too -weaken the weed by having cattle graze on it, then hit the root with herbicide."

As a last resort, he said with sigh, "here in Alabama we use a bulldozer and asphalt it over."