Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), native to Asia, captured the hearts of American gardeners in the 1870s. What an ideal plant it seemed, with gorgeous red berries that appeared just in time for festive holiday decorations.
Unfortunately it escaped to the wild and is now an invasive vine that thickly covers our native plants. It spreads easily because its fruit tastes good to birds and is now listed as invasive in 21 states and 14 national parks. What a mistake!
Today’s the day for spooks and ghosts. Its colors are black and orange, the black of night and witches’ hats, the orange of glowing embers and the harvest moon.
Why aren’t our black-and-orange birds associated with Halloween? Probably because Baltimore orioles, American redstarts and Blackburnian warblers are small and harmless and they’ve migrated out of North America by late October. Instead the smart and crafty crows and ravens are symbols of this spooky holiday. Black is in and the crows are in town.
For the color orange you can’t beat pumpkins. Did you know that pumpkins are native to the Americas but they’re now grown around the world? The major pumpkin-growing countries are the U.S., Mexico, India and China. Pennsylvania is one of the top five pumpkin producing states so when I buy a pumpkin I’m “buying local.”
This Halloween we get a bonus. We’ll turn our clocks back tonight and get an extra hour of sleep. The bad news is that the sun will set at 5:07pm on Sunday and the black of night will descend upon us an hour earlier.
Plants have many strategies for dispersing their fruits. Here’s one that’s quite ingenious.
First, wrap the seed in a very sour, very hard pulp. Then wrap the pulp in a colorful covering that lasts a long time. The fruit is so hard and sour that no one will eat it. So why bother making fruit?
Ah, but wait. As fall turns to winter, frost breaks down the pulp and takes the extreme sour edge off the fruit. At this point the birds who remain through the winter have something to eat.
Theoretically this strategy of feeding winter birds would guarantee the seeds don’t disperse far, but the plant has spread thanks to people. In colonial times we figured out how to add sugar and make jams and jellies from it, and we like its color so much that we plant it as an ornamental.
Quite a success story for Cranberry Viburnum (Viburnum trilobum), a beautiful but sour fruit.
Sometimes the best fall colors come in tiny packages.
Look at the forest floor and you may see this Indian Cucumber. It’s all decked out in green, red and blue to attract passing birds. The colors are arranged like a bull’s eye, circling the berries. “Eat me!” it says to the birds. And they oblige.
No, these aren’t tomatoes. They’re related to tomatoes, but don’t eat them. They’re poisonous.
These are the fruits of Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara), a common weed in North America that’s native to Europe and Asia. Click on the photo to see its flowers.
Until I did the research for this blog, I called this plant Deadly Nightshade but that’s the common name for a completely different and far more deadly plant, Atropa Belladonna. Belladonna is so poisonous that 2-5 of its deep blue berries can kill a child, 10-20 berries or a single leaf can kill an adult. In Ancient Rome the aristrocracy found it quite effective for killing their rivals.
Both plants are in the Nightshade family (Solanaceae) which includes a wide variety of edible and poisonous species. The edible plants are so tasty that humans went to the trouble of cultivating them: potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, chili peppers and paprika. The toxic plants are beautiful but dangerous: Deadly Nightshade, Bittersweet Nightshade, Mandrake and Jimson Weed (Datura), to name a few.
Somewhere in humanity’s past, people had to figure out which plants were good to eat and which weren’t. What a risky business! I’m glad that job is done and we’re able to pass on the knowledge.
Meanwhile, don’t worry that you’ll mistake these berries for tomatoes. Bittersweet Nightshade berries are tiny and the plant smells bad.
Here’s a flower that I look for in September at Moraine State Park. Closed or Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) likes to grow in damp soil so I risk getting my feet wet when I look for it. It’s always a pleasant surprise to find it.
The petals of Bottle Gentians never open but a bumblebee can force its way into the flower at the top. In fact, bumblebees are just about the only insect who wants to – and can – collect the nectar.
It seems to me this is a lot of trouble to go to for each flower. It must be worth it.
Here’s a flower that blooms in Pennsylvania – and in Acadia National Park in September.
Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritaceae) probably got its “everlasting” name because it dries well for use in winter flower arrangements. It’s a member of the Aster family.
Jewelweed flowers (Impatiens capensis) offer inviting landing pads for bumblebees. The “jewel” in the name comes from the way water beads up on the leaves and sparkles like diamonds in the sun.
This plant is also called Spotted Touch-me-not because the flowers are spotted and the ripe seed pods explode when you touch them as if to say “Touch Me Not.”
The explosions are so cool that I am tempted to touch the plant even more. I make it a contest and try to beat the seeds at their own game. Whenever I find Jewelweed I look for the fattest seed pods and give each one a squeeze to see if I can capture the seeds before they leap from my finger tips. I always lose unless I cup my hand around the pod.
Ragweed leaves and flower spike (photos by Chuck Tague)
Ragweed season officially begins every year on August 15.
Mercifully I have never been allergic to it but I’ve had my share of outdoor allergies. I know the agony of a sneezy, runny nose and itchy, watery eyes and the scratchy throat that itches all the way back into your ears. Misery! Once the itchy reaction starts it’s hard to stop.
Eventually, through sneezy experimentation, I figured out what causes my allergies — hay, cut grass, marigolds, cut ground ivy, privet flowers, chrysanthemums — and I learned not to sniff them deeply. It helps that I live in the city where there aren’t extensive lawns. And no, you can’t tell me that cut grass smells sweet. It smells like hayfever.
So ragweed sufferers, know thine enemy. The leaves are dark green and deeply cut. The flower is a pale green-yellow spike that doesn’t look much like a flower at all.
Common ragweed’s flower is ugly because it isn’t trying to attract insects. This plant is pollinated by the wind so the flower spike stands like a flagpole with loads of pollen that “poof” easily into the air. That’s why it’s so good at making you sneeze.
