Wild Grape

You may have to click the pic to better see the flowers here, but these are the flowering clusters of our wild grape.   They smell amazing.  If the perfume this year is any indicator, then we should have a bumper crop of these babies this fall, which will make the squirrels and birds very happy.   

Wild grapes are everywhere in our woods.  They are the Tarzan vines that loop and curl and drape over everything.  The vines get pretty big - I see some as big around as my wrist in the oldest parts of our woods. 

Bittersweet

I love bittersweet vines!   All that gorgeous hot color during the winter makes me so happy.  

We've seen it out and about in this area, but not on our property until this year.   I found two vines along the road.   The birds do a great job of spreading it around.

Its formal name is Celastrus scandens - American bittersweet. 

WARNING:   Bittersweet is poisonous.  It's safe to touch, but not eat.  If you use it to decorate, make sure to keep it away from children and pets...and Great Aunt Betty, who loves to tell stories about how they ate wild things in the woods to survive the Depression and let me show you how.

Turns out there is an Oriental bittersweet vine that is making its way through New England.   It's invasive and it's against the law to sell or move the vine or its seeds.

Oriental bittersweet is bad.  American bittersweet is OK.  Make sure you know which one you're working with.

Here's an article that helps you identify which one you have:  http://landscaping.about.com/cs/groundcovervines1/a/bittersweet.htm

"But exactly what plant are we talking about? There are two dioecious vines with yellow and orange berries commonly called "bittersweet." They look very much alike. One, an innocuous vine indigenous to North America with smooth stems, is Celastrus scandens, also called "American bittersweet" plant or "false bittersweet." The other, an exotic vine that is among North America's most invasive plants and whose stem bears blunt thorns, is Celastrus orbiculatus, or "oriental bittersweet" vine. Another way to distinguish between American and oriental types is by discerning the location of their berries: the berries of American bittersweet plants appear at the tips of the vines only, while those of the oriental type grow along the vine."

Did you get that?    American bittersweet has berries at the tips of the vines.    Oriental bittersweet has berries along the vine, too. 

Our berries grow only at the tips of the vine - American bittersweet.   American bittersweet is native and OK to use and grow.  

Greenbrier

This is Smilax rotundifolia, also called roundleaf greenbrier.   It's common enough out here, but I've never been able to identify it until now - these blue berries are a dead giveaway.

It's also called Catbrier.  We have the variety that has a few thorns [hence the name greenbrier], but not tons of them.   Some of the Smilax species have stems covered with bristly thorns.   It's worse than the multiflora roses to deal with and almost impossible to get rid of.  

These berries will hang on all winter and are an important source of winter feed for birds and animals.   [Which will help me rationalize my decision to just let them be.]

Here are more pics of the leaves so you can see what they look like during the summer.   The leaves remind me of a fleshy sort of clematis.  They're really pretty.