Mysterynovelist.com - Weblog Home - 2008 - 01 - 16 - Early spring, or not? And what is this vine?
musings, thoughts, and writings of Barbara W. Klaser


January 16, 2008

Early spring, or not? And what is this vine?

In a couple of weeks, groundhogs will make their yearly predictions, though I’m not sure a prairie dweller afraid of its own shadow is a very reliable sign of the turning seasons. I’ve begun to wonder if we’ll have an early spring, though. The weather has turned sunny and warm, and we haven’t needed an extra blanket for the past few nights.

Weeds have cropped up all over our yard, making everything green, even if it isn’t the commonly acceptable form of green. When the weeds first sprouted they were beautiful, and in some open, flat parts of the yard, from a distance you would almost think we had a lawn. We don’t, and now that they’re larger, from a distance they just look like a bunch of weeds.

We found something new and interesting under the pine trees. It was a strange vine, not anything I recognized, but vaguely reminiscent of a Cucumber, or maybe some variety of Passionflower. (Click photos for larger views.)

Unknown Vine 01 2008 Unknown Vine 02 2008

It had grown a lot by the time we noticed it, and was on its way to spreading all over that section of the yard, sending out long, tightly curled tendrils that took hold of whatever was in their reach.

Unknown Vine 04 2008 Unknown Vine 05 2008

It had already started up one pine tree.

Unknown Vine 03 2008

I looked it up on the internet and didn’t find anything conclusive, at least not at first. Nope, not a garden-variety Cucumber, and thank goodness it doesn’t appear to be a Kudzu Vine. It wasn’t a Mandrake, which sort of disappointed me, as a fan of Harry Potter movies, though I don’t particularly want a plant that will scream at me.

Possibilities came and went as I searched for vines with multiple-lobed leaves, even the possibility that it was some kind of wild grape, which it wasn’t. One type of vine that seemed to come close was the Bitter Melon, also known as Balsam Apple or Balsam Pear. That narrowed my search to various forms of gourd or Cucurbitaceae, such as Hodgsonia, or Luffa, or the much more likely Chayote, which is sold in our local markets. But the leaves weren’t right for Chayote. The strongest possibility I’ve come up with so far is some variety of Coyote Melon or Coyote Gourd, which grows wild in our region.

If you know for certain what this vine is, please let me know.

How it got there is the easy part of this mystery, and would be even if I’d never seen a house finch scatter seeds. Our local scrub jay friends are always hiding things in the needles that collect under our pine trees. It’s a favorite place to store their seeds, nuts, magic beans, and whatever else they hoard for later, usually scrub oak acorns, or peanuts people have fed them. Last summer, while we trimmed the pine trees and cleared out a thick mulch of pine needles, one scrub jay kept fussing over our activity, and every now and then he darted in to rescue some of his treasures. In some years we’ve had volunteer sunflowers sprout there and grow to full height.

NOTE: The pictures that follow are from past summers, not this winter. Even here, we don’t ever see sunflowers blooming in January.

Sunflower 01 2003 Sunflower 02 2003

Out front, we have an entire patch of some kind of creeping yellow daisy that came up there one year, probably also carried in by birds. We water it now and then, so although it dies back each winter, it returns to open a bright patch of yellow flowers every summer, next to our old pickup.

Yellow Daisies 01 2004 Yellow Daisies 02 2004

In any case, the strange vine has been eradicated, so we won’t have any cries of “Feed me, Seymour!” coming from under the pine trees, and it won’t grow so large as to strangle a pine tree. Jack won’t have to climb up the beanstalk and see if there’s a giant living up there. Good thing, too, because no one named Jack lives here, so we’d have to pay Jack to do that. Still, I hope we didn’t kill something we would’ve liked. Sometimes the birds bring us weeds, and sometimes they bring us gifts that we enjoy for years.

Maybe we will have an early spring, maybe not. I’m in no hurry. I certainly don’t look forward to the hottest part of summer. But a long spring would be nice.

— Barbara @ rudimentary 6:20 pm PST, 01/16/08

3 Comments

  1. Eric Mayer says:

    Fascinating mystery. Maybe you should have waited for the vine to produce flowers or a fruit which might have identified it. Of course you might have been sorry. It might have spread uncontrollably! It might have produced…something…strange. Never mind me I just got done reading The Colour Out of Space by H.P.Lovecraft where something unpleasant arrived in a meteorite. Not by birds. Say, you don’t have any chasms around? Faults hidden in caverns that might go down a long way. A bird might bring out something that was never meant to grow in the light of day.

  2. susan says:

    Love the yellow ‘daisy’ patch. I’ve no idea on the vine, being a New Englander so unfamiliar with your local flora and fauna, and at first glance thought of ivy, but the tendrils changed that notion.

    I love Eric’s idea of a seed from the core of the earth. Now there’s a story.

  3. Bev Jackson says:

    Oh, rats, I was looking forward to seeing what that vine produced (we all love a good mystery…could it have been a shrinking violet vine?)

    We still have a bit of snow on the ground, and they say the “Siberian Express” is headed our way, so we’re bracing for another storm. No early spring for us,
    I’m afraid. (but of course when we get it, it’s long and glorious).

    Here’s hoping for a temperate summer for you!


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