In my wandering down Piney Woods Church Road this morning, I inevitably returned to the Sweet Autumn Virginsbower (Clematis terniflora) blooming along a cattle pasture fence. I suspect I will take quite a few photographs of the flower in different light over the days to come. For today, my image juxtaposes the delicate, four-petaled white flower with a barb in the fence, a gray blur in the background.
Another plant came into flower along Piney Woods Church Road, which is a fairly uncommon event at the height of midsummer. The blooming vine is covered with a profusion of white blossoms with four petals and yellow stigmas (the uppermost portion of the pistil). It has a delicate beauty though no noticeable fragrance. I was disappointed to find that it is an invasive species from China or Japan with quite a melodramatic name : Sweet Autumn Virginsbower (Clematis terniflora). Originally introduced as an ornamental plant, it is now found throughout the Southeast along forest edges and rights-of-way. Ah, well. If I am to be a photographer of dirt road landscapes, I will become familiar indeed with many invasive species on my journeys.
It was a frightfully hot afternoon, and I had little anticipation of encountering anything wonderful or mysterious on my walk. I felt the pressure of a frantic day, having spent hours before my walk preparing a talk for Monday, and facing the prospect of several hours afterward tutoring online. Still, I was surprised to find a new bloom — or, rather, a new bloom for July. The Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) partway down Piney Woods Church Road was flowering again. It is the third set of blossoms on that particular wisteria for this year. Like last time, though, there was only a single raceme of blossoms — the rest of the plant was merely leaves and seedpods. Still, I am impressed with the determination of this invasive flower. Like human beings, Chinese wisteria is a weed species. Like us, it seems capable of being fertile and having sex (in its case, the floral variety) many times in one year. It is a trait I might expect of a hybrid cultivar purchased from a greenhouse, but not from a vine growing in the wild along the roadside.
Still, the flower is so delicate, so pretty, with such cloyingly sweet perfume, that I am nearly seduced by its charms, and almost willing to forgive its flowering out of season….
On an overcast early evening with just a hint of drizzle, I set out on my daily exploration of Piney Woods Church Road. I was not inspired by the diffuse lighting, no matter how often I have read that cloudy days are supposedly beloved by macro-photographers. And for a second time in two days, I found myself photographing ripening berries of a Chinese Privet shrub (Ligustrum sinense). They add splashes of red to the landscape, I grant that. But they also carry the progeny of what is among the worst invasive plant species in the Piedmont of Georgia. Each little berry is a future privet plant, choking out native vegetation wherever it grows, from road edge to the forest’s heart. While I was able to find some beauty in the privet flowers in the springtime, berries are another matter entirely.
A short distance down the road from the privet horde, several cherry saplings were partially covered in web tents. A number of skeletonized leaves hung like white veils, their life-force converted into the ever-growing bodies of Fall Webworms (Hyphantria cunea). Inside the tents, tiny pale yellow caterpillars with black spots were gathered — in places, clustered by the dozens, and in other spots, further apart. As their name suggests, Fall Webworms actually do most of their damage later in the season, when the caterpillars are much larger. Already, though, there are several tents on each of a half-dozen trees in the immediate vicinity, including a persimmon in our backyard. Fall Webworm tents get much bigger even than those of Eastern Tent Caterpillars, with which I was already familiar. Unchecked, they can even defoliate entire trees. Oh, well. At least they aren’t actually invasive….
For today’s post, I bring both images together. If there is anything that one might classify as evil in the local landscape, it is embodied in the Chinese Privet and the Fall Webworm. I am working hard on appreciating these two. After all, they are both quite common now, and I have resolved to celebrate the commonplace in nature. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I haven’t given up, either. I suspect that both the berries and the caterpillars provide food for songbirds of some kind, and that’s a start. And at least they also offer the prospect of bad puns….
More than a month after the wisteria blooms have shriveled and petals fallen onto the roadbed, the Chinese wisteria along Piney Woods Church Road is putting all its energy into producing large, fuzzy green seed pods. Except for in one isolated spot, where a plant that appears to be out of step with all the others has produced a single cluster of blossoms. As our climate warms, perhaps there will someday be two blooming events for Chinese wisteria in Georgia every year. This might be a harbinger of things to come. But for today, I will just appreciate it for its rarity and lovely colors, and try not to let any other thoughts come to mind.
On my way home down Rico Rd., I found this pair of Japanese honeysuckle blossoms along the roadside.
The time of Chinese wisteria is a distant memory, and now the blooms of Chinese privet are spent. The days of Japanese honeysuckle are upon us. So pass the seasons of invasive species flowering along Piney Woods Church Road.
I set out down Piney Woods Church late this afternoon with lifted spirits, following an encouraging note from a friend, reminding me that all the changes I saw yesterday will soon be undone by nature, in the form of rain, wind, and new growth. Meanwhile, I discovered all sorts of possibilities for photographs today. The image I selected is a close-up of the point where the leaf of a vine connected to the main stem. It marks a confluence, where all of the veins in the leaf come together. Also at the join, two long trendrils emerge from the plant, helping it to climb over any obstacles and cling to anything in its path. Most likely, the plant is one of two possible species (both invasive) in the genus Discorea: either the air-potato (Discorea bulbifera) from Africa, or the Chinese yam (Discorea oppositifolia) from Asia. The two are difficult to distinguish (my bets are on the Chinese yam), but both plants are considered highly invasive.
One thing I have noticed from all my explorations of roadside plants is that most of them are non-native, and they harken from a variety of homelands. Many are from Europe, but others are from parts of Asia or even Africa. I am coming to realize that a rural Georgia back road can be a much more cosmopolitan place than I had previously imagined.
My afternoon walk down Piney Woods Church Road was an experience in letting go. The road has been regraded — it is wider than ever before, and all the potholes and ruts are, for now, absent. Along the roadside, it seemed as if everyone with a mower was out in force this weekend. What was yesterday morning a sea of self-heal weeds along the road was, today, just a band of short grass with a couple of self-heal remaining that somehow escaped the blade. The air was close and the sky gray, but not a gray that betokened the arrival of dramatic weather yet (on Tuesday, though, quite possibly). I was in the grips of a head cold, my first illness since ten days in a hospital with pneumonia last September. And there was practically nothing to photograph.
I settled, at last, for this image, conveying well the transience of all things. A fallen petal of flowering dogwood rests on a Chinese wisteria leaf. The dogwood and wisteria are both past blooming now.
The wisteria blooms are all spent now, save for a few shriveled flower petals that haven’t yet fallen onto the roadway. Yet, for all its aggressiveness, Chinese wisteria also offers moments of dazzling beauty. Even after the flowers are gone, the leaves still captivate me, illuminated by late afternoon light. They glow like the finest stained glass, turning a rural lane into a chapel for contemplating the cosmos.
