Can You Identify This

This week we are posting pictures of unknown things in nature.  Believe me, there are many things I do not know, but with the late spring, it has been difficult finding things growing, moving, living.  But I am visiting in North Carolina where spring starts earlier than the midwest.  So yesterday, in back of my daughter's new house in a subdivision near Raleigh, I found this plant growing....all over the place!  It was taking over the waste land behind the house.

I singled out a typical vine to get a better look.

It is growing on the backyard fence.

It was a warm sunny afternoon as I took the pictures, but I have a funny feeling that something growing this well in a disturbed area can not be a good thing.

This tannish vine was probably one of the first things to green up this spring or stayed green all year.  Here it is taking advantage of all of the abundant sunlight to grow and climb, the vine clearly headed for the top of the fence!

The leaves are clearly opposite in arrangement. They do not appear to be notched, and they are oval to elliptically shaped.








For size reference, I placed a quarter near one of the leaves.  See the photo below.

So, with these clues, can you identify this plant. 

To tie this activity to the science practices from the new Next Generation Science Standards, you can present this as "claims and evidence".  You can claim it is a certain species and then list the evidence you used to support this claim.

What is it?