Chilicothe in Heidelberg Park
I went to Heidelberg Park in northeast LA a few weeks ago and still haven't written about it. You'll have to wait for me on that, but here's a crazy photo I took of chilicothe growing all over the place. I kept going aroudn the corner and seeing another glade so covered up with chilicothe that you couldn't see anything else - it's growing so thickly that it completely covers up some other living plants.
Chilicothe is a native gourd from the LA area. It forms spiky fruits. The biggest ones are about the size of my (not particularly large) fist:
The funniest thing about chilicothe is that it is from a genus called "Man-Roots." I genuinely don't know why this is!