Air Potato Vine (Dioscorea bulbifera)

1/22/11
     I went with my friend Sara today to join in on the Great Air Potato Raid 2011. We went out with Seminole County and collected 111 Air Potatoes. We also collected some litter including a half full bottle of Vodka. In the picture Sara has the biggest Air Potato I've ever seen. Many people said they have found even bigger ones in other places.
    The organizers and volunteers both said they collected more last year. I take this as a good sign that the problem is getting better. Several organizations joined in with today's Air Potato raid.

1/14/11 Highway 50 Recreation Center

     I've visited this park briefly before. But recently I looked at it on Mapquest.com and saw there was a lot of it I hadn't seen. So today I returned to the HWY-50 Rec Center and really explored. There was a lot of land there including paved paths, streams, swamps, a baseball field (where I took the top picture of the only invasive Japanese Climbing Fern I saw there and which I'll have to come back for) playgrounds and entries to adjoining apartment complexes.
     I found Brazilian Pepper everywhere. It is quite bad here. This is the closest Brazilian Pepper I know of to my house. There was a few Air Potatoes on the ground also.
     I found an arrow (see bottom picture) which I kept. There was lots of recyclable garbage and lot of balls I'll come back for, especially around the apartment complexes.
     There was a group of seedy looking people in one area which made me uncomfortable. At lease there was no dogs. I was not armed in any way because I didn't realize how large the park was.