Clearing Woods - Part 3 - More Vines
Part Three - More Vines
The native and non-native vines in my woods are either total thugs or thugs with redeeming features.
Virginia Creeper
Parthenocissus quinquefolia, Virginia creeper or woodbine, falls into the thugs with redeeming features category.
Like wild grape, it is also a member of the Vitaceae or grape family, and can be found in most woodlands of the eastern US.
Pictured is a typical bit of my woodland floor, crisscrossed and interwoven with this vine who can put on six to ten or more feet (1.8 -3.0+ m) of growth in a single season. Vines dive underground to emerge yards away and continue on their merry way until they encounter something to climb.
Here is an old stem climbing a tree.
Note the hairy aerial root-like hold-fasts with which it adheres to anything it encounters.
I have pulled old stems over two inches (5.07 cm) in diameter. Interestingly, except for very new growth at the ends, the vines on the ground have virtually no leaves.
Unlike wild grapevine, even old vines of Virginia creeper don't seem to damage trees. Its cover isn't as thick, so it doesn't have that sail-like quality that topples big trees in high winds. It tends to simply creep out limbs and drape decoratively from them. Fall color is a marvelous red.
It is often confused with a vine that only wildlife loves:
Poison Ivy
Poison ivy has always been Rhus radicans to me, but it appears that I'm highly out of date.
Starting with Linnaeus, taxonomists lumped the poisonous ivies, oaks and sumacs in with the rest of the non-poisonous Rhus genus, causing great confusion. About thirty years ago, the poisonous varieties were moved to their own genus, thus making the correct name, Toxicodendron radicans.
By whatever botanical name, it's a plant that you should learn to recognize if you live in the eastern half of the US from Main to Florida and west to a line from South Dakota to Texas plus Arizona or parts of Canada or China, Japan, the Russian Federation or the Bahamas, Bermuda or Guatemala.
Shown are the aerial roots from an old vine climbing a tree. Notice that they are much denser and more hairy looking than those of Virginia Creeper...this hairiness is a dead give away that the vine you are looking at is poison ivy. The one pictured looks old and dead, but it is not, despite having lost some of its bark. Beware, even dead parts of this vine can give you a good rash.
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