If you’re exploring the Lake Martin area and come across an outrageously thorny shrub with twisting green arms, it’s likely an invader that’s been here for more than a century.

Back in the days before barbed wire, one of the ways to create fenced pasture for livestock was to plant a thorny hedgerow on the outside borders. Today, wire is cheap and plentiful, but in the mid 1800s, fencing was expensive and time consuming.