Day 350: "Well, that's bloody weird," I said aloud when I spotted a tight cluster of orangey-red berries on a sprangly plant. "I've never seen huckleberries do that before!" And then I took a closer look at the plant. It wasn't a huckleberry bush. It was Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) which, as a legume, makes pea pods filled with little black seeds, not bunches of brilliant berries. "What the heck? Waitaminit, that's on a different stem." I followed the vine downward (and it was clearly a vine once I really started analyzing), and eventually arrived at a few sickly leaves about a foot from the ground. "Oh, dumb me!" I said, laughing at myself. "It's a freaking honeysuckle!" Sure enough, once I pushed the tangle of blackberry thorns away from the base, I could see where the honeysuckle vine (Lonicera ciliosa) had come up right beside the main stem of the Scotch Broom, and had taken advantage of the natural trellis. Satisfied that I had laid a major botanical mystery to rest, I moved on. Sometimes Ma likes to play jokes, and she got me good with this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment