Christmas ‘Cone Weed’ loses its cone, much of its weediness

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. – North Carolina’s Christmas “Cone Weed” has lost its cone and much of its weediness.

The Huntersville Fire Department posted on Twitter that a road crew showed up in a truck Monday and removed the orange traffic cone that had a hardy weed growing out of it. The cone and plant on the grass beside the highway had sparked a social media sensation after someone decorated the scraggly vegetation with tinsel and Christmas ornaments last week.

According to the department, firefighters have retrieved the Christmas decorations scattered on the roadside and rehung them on what was left of the weed, which one firefighter described as “a stem.”

The weed had been growing unencumbered across from the fire station for a year and had developed a following.