Introduced from eastern Asia, now in many places an aggressive vine in ± disturbed ground such as roadsides, railroads, banks and bluffs, thickets; also invading forests.

This is a vigorous grower with not only climbing shoots, but also long creeping shoots that rapidly expand a patch to form dense tangles that overwhelm the native (or other) vegetation. The earliest Michigan records are from Washtenaw (1892) and Wayne (1904) counties; the dates of all other specimens seen are scattered from 1937 onwards.

The corolla is white, fading quickly to pale or dull yellow. Leaves of rapidly growing vegetative shoots (especially those spreading over the ground) may be coarsely toothed, almost lobed, a feature which, along with the capitate glands intermingled with the eglandular pubescence on young stems, nodes, and petioles, help distinguish vegetative material from the native L. hirsuta.