The tumbleweed, a plant as recognizably western as the west itself. Famous for its appearances in standoffs and duels, it made a name for itself with its iconic appearances in American culture. However, this is quite deceiving, as tumbleweeds are about as native to America as the colonists that had to deal with them; and in fact, they originate from Russia.

Tumbleweeds, also known as the “Russian Thistle” or the “Wind Witches”, were imported to Bon Homme, South Dakota around the 1870s accidentally, when several seeds made their way into a crate of flaxseed. From these seeds that were brought over, several tumbleweeds began to grow and then tumble around the land, causing problems.

But what real problems could they have created? Well, they posed a few issues for farmers around the time period. Farming was a huge deal around the 1870s, as America was still being developed and the people needed to be fed. And Tumbleweeds, with their famous tumbling rolled right on into those farmers fields, overwhelming, destroying, and burning their harvests.

You see, Tumbleweeds have a few attributes that make them very annoying to deal with. First of all, while they take years to fully develop, they make up for that in sheer numbers. Tumbleweeds tumble for the purposes of dispersing the thousands upon thousands of seeds they carry on them, leaving them along the path they travel and letting them grow there.

Secondly, Tumbleweeds are very thorny, and when they roll on to crop, they can end up tearing them apart and destroying them. As well, the thorns can get stuck together, and when there are a lot of them, this can create a painful and painstakingly long process of removal from fields.

Finally, Tumbleweeds tumble to disperse their seeds, but to do this they need to first dehydrate entirely to uproot themselves and die for their children. Because they are so dehydrated, they are very easily flammable, and flammable material mixed with  South Dakota heat is a great recipe for a wildfire.

Taking the stated attributes into consideration, they all work together to create a pretty large problem for farmers. Tumbleweeds roll onto crop fields, ripping apart crops and leaving a trail of seeds in their wake, letting their children grow on already occupied land, taking nutrients from crops to grow and overwhelming that crop in the spaces that they grow in. And when there are enough tumbleweeds in one spot, they can light on fire and burn down entire fields in the worst of scenarios. They were also getting caught onto and jamming new machinery that was being used for farming. These problems were continuing, getting worse over time, and not just in South Dakota.

Tumbleweeds, as mentioned before, travel to disperse their seeds; and they can travel very far on their own. Tumbleweeds had begun their expansion across the continent almost immediately after growing, with only twenty years passing after introduction before covering nearly 16 US states near the middle of the country and several Canadian lands. And as they continued, they spread to almost all of The US, and eventually spread to the northern sections of Mexico. All of the problems that South Dakota was having with them were brought to everywhere they spread.

But with their massive expanse, farmers weren’t the only ones having problems with them. Tumbleweeds were coming and growing across the land, covering massive amounts of the land, leading to roads being blocked by hundreds of them, machinery like cars being damaged or overtaken by them, and houses being blocked off, damaged, or uninhabitable due to their overwhelming presence. They were spreading to entire towns, terrorizing the people living in them, and leading to uninhabitable circumstances in some of the worst cases.

Problems like these have even persisted to today. Many videos of roads being blocked off and cleared and cars needing to be unburied by large clumps of tumbleweeds are being created daily all around the country. There was even a specific case where the entire town of Victorville, California lost their homes because of an overwhelming number of tumbleweeds filling the streets.

What makes them truly awful though, is how permanent a problem they are. They, as mentioned before, have thousands of seeds, and to get rid of tumbleweeds from the land forever, every weed and all of its seeds need to be accounted for, because if even a few are left, it will start all over again. The Department of Agriculture has been fighting the existence of tumbleweeds for nearly 150 years now, and that fight is futile, as it would be an impossible task to win.

Tumbleweeds are a plant that, while harmless at a glance and iconic for their appearances in western culture, are damaging and destructive. They have been terrorizing North American farmers and citizens for almost 150 years and are one of the largest problems the Department of Agriculture has ever had to face. They have persisted because of their numbers and survivability, and are an agonizing force that the general public seems to be uninformed of. So the next time you see a tumbleweed, consider all the problems that it could cause, just by rolling around.