Bits and Pieces

Today's is a bunch of little things I've run across lately. First up is Winged Sumac--it has some of the most intense colors of the fall foilage.

Oriental Bittersweet is so heavy with fruit.

This Southern Bayberry is supposed to be evergreen and it's holding so far. Some other species do drop their leaves. This is one of the bushes I want to take cuttings from.

And lastly, here's Buttonbush, first ID'd in the winter when it looked like these. There's a real nice pleasure in coming around full cycle with my local species.

Oriental Bittersweet

At this time of year, the profusion of Oriental Bittersweet becomes readily apparent when huge blankets of yellowing leaves hang from roadside trees. Pretty as it is, Celastrus orbiculatus can certainly overtake the landscape. As it climbs into trees, it smothers with its shading and can topple trees with excess weight and surface exposure during high winds or heavy snows.

Here are bittersweet vines girdling a Black Walnut. In contrast, the lovely lichens live peacefully, neither taking from nor giving to their support.

Birds feeding on the berries spread seed and frustrate control.

Shoreline

Oh my, I'm falling behind...

I planned on new moss shots for today's post but won't get to them until later this evening. Additionally, I need to get to some photos of my recently sprouting unknown twigs. Actually, I can now identify one, Sassafras, as it has just opened up a few days ago. Meanwhile, the Catalpa is really taking off. How fascinating, isn't it, how all this stuff happens?

So, here are a few shoreline pictures from last weekend when I ventured into a No Trespassing area. It's only some town well and pump station property and figure since I'm carrying the camera that no problems will come my way. By the way, those red berries in the middle shot are from an overhead Bittersweet vine.

p.s. Yesterday's post didn't get pushed out by FeedBurner. Bad Feedburner! Bad!

Bittersweet is my first

I want to be aware of a plant's origin and somehow expected that my first entry would be native to the area. Alas, this bittersweet appears to be Celastrus orbiculatus, the Oriental Bittersweet and not C. scandens, the American Bittersweet that I was expecting. If that's not enough, it's also a destructive infiltrator capable of girdling and hence killing trees.

My identification comes mainly from counting fruit seeds-- one or none indicates the American Bittersweet (still destructive but more gently so) and five or greater indicates Oriental with 90% probability. (Great Lakes Science Center's American and Oriental Bittersweet Identification)

I found six seeds in each of three fruit sampled.