picture of Bittersweet – SilverLining

Bittersweet is so pretty. That’s a simple truth. The deep red berries framed by their rich yellow peeling are beautiful adorning the outdoors or as a decorative accent within an interior setting. Enjoy these images I’ve taken of bittersweet that borders the pond.

Because of its beauty, I struggle with the truth about this plant – it is choking to death many of our trees. Bittersweet is not native to this country and it has no natural predator. Environmentalists ask that we eradicate its wild growth by cutting the vines, and by only growing it in contained pots. And that, whenever we use it decoratively, we dispose of the decoration in a bag, to contain the berries.

Recently, on road trips, I’ve noticed that along the highways (through the eastern states anyway), vast stretches of trees have been pulled to the ground by this vine.

At the pond, this destruction is very evident at this time of year when there are no leaves on the trees. Entwined with the bittersweet are both poison ivy and Concord grape vines. There is a real battle going on along the far side of the pond – and the trees are losing.

Even in its wrath, the vines are artistically beautiful, fluid and graceful.

But the mass of their weave, as shown below, indicates how out of control and overpowering this plant has become.

The destruction is evident in the pictures below of trees broken and bent by the pull of the vines. What appears as a photo of birch trees that I’ve neglected to rotate 90 degrees counter-clockwise, is truly the trees bent to that angle by the tug of the vines.

And you can see, too, the break in branches, the final give when the limb can no longer hold.

When looking across the pond to its far side, the stunted growth of the trees is evident in the tree-top line.The closest view below looks to me to be not unlike a Tim Burton creation – something eerily close to reality, but distorted by a sinister force.

See the graceful sweep of the invasive plant as it reaches from one tree top to another in its unstoppable intent to reach for the sun’s light and warmth for its continued sustenance.

The sturdy pines appear to hold up better. But I’ve seen the vines, with no urgency of time, cut deep into the trunk of a tree over the span of years.

Again, here’s the pretty predator:

The intensity of fall colors surround the pond, manifesting in the foliage, berries, and even the bugs.

Bittersweet is a favorite of mine, not just for its vivid red and yellow, but for the little drama that is expressed with the peeling away of the yellow shell.

I’ve been told that it’s the first frost that causes the shell to strip back from the inner berry. In the image below I see frost damage in the black of the leaves, but truly, that’s a guess. Please enlarge this photo for full appreciation. (Click on it, then after viewing, click on the back arrow to return to the post.) Hiding midst the chocolate brown of the surrounding evergreen trunks and the entwining vines they host, these three red berries are an striking contrast.

The photo below marks a progressive step in my photography. The well achieved focus of the black dotted bug, which is not much more that one-quarter inch in length, was neither luck nor skill, but instinct. I had my camera on the bee when in a sliver of a second, motion caught my eye. With the camera and me working as one, attention shifted left and, click, the D40 performed beautifully, refocusing (it was set at auto) and showing us this little beauty, which was gone by the time I moved the camera from my eye to see it for real. This is another photo that is best seen enlarged. The bug is a Spotted Cucumber Beetle.

Anyone who takes pictures of dragonflies appreciates that nearly all varieties of them sit still and pose for the shutter bug. However, more than a counter challenge to their cooperation, is managing to achieve an image that does justice to the intricate netting of all four wings while simultaneously holding the streamline body in focus. I chose the shot below (of a Half-banded Toper couple) from perhaps twenty-five, which I took from various vantage points in an attempt to minimize background distraction, maximize the focus of the body and all eight wings, and produce variety in the background color – blue against the water, green against the far shoreline of the pond. In the end, I preferred the blue. This mating couple held their pose as I, in yoga-like pose, worked intently at this shot. All that said, it’s just okay. I’ll keep working at my skill here. (Or, perhaps I’ll invest in the 400 lens.)

Now about the couple…they are really stuck on each other. They not only sit in pose like this, but fly in the same posture. I don’t like to wonder if the under-fly is actually alive. It doesn’t move a wing. It just hangs in frozen suspension. Hmmm… But see its little arms gripping? The couple zips around the pond going from plant to plant stopping, I presume, for leaf nibbling. But again I wonder, why does only the upright one get to eat?

In shape and color the little beauty below most resembles the Nine-spotted Ladybug Beetle. Watching it poke around the parameters of this leaf took me back to the wonder of my childhood.

I’m not quite understanding berries. I thought they arrived in summer – kind of like fruit and in the form of such common things as the strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, and blackberry. But I have photos from all the seasons but winter that show berries of all varieties. I love to take pictures of them. Maybe there are fruit berries and blossom berries. Maybe what I show below is a blossom berry. In any event, to my eye, the color of the leaves competes with the red berries for attention.

In no way does the picture below reveal the action of the moment. This caterpillar may as well have been a pioneer crossing the Rockies for all the effort it mustered to cross a two foot stretch of lawn. Up, over, and around, up, over, and through – it hauled itself with great determination and dexterity.

There’s lots going on at the pond.

Tag: picture of Bittersweet

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