Bittersweet Fall Colors

Now that November is here, almost all of the trees around the prairie have lost their leaves, and the shrubs are quickly catching up with them. Only the Autumn Olive and Morrow's Honeysuckle are holding onto leaves, and some of the smaller prairie patches that are surrounded by brush and hard to locate in the summer can now be seen from the dirt road. The berries on the Asiatic Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) vines have opened up, exposing the orange-red insides and the yellow outer cover, so the vines are suddenly very conspicuous in many of the trees in Big Hollow. This nonnative, invasive vine is a real problem in many part of PA, and is smothering parts of the prairie as well. It is one more invasive plant that we will be removing as best we can. Larger vines can be cut, but these plants spread by underground stems (stolons) or roots (rhizomes) allowing new shoots to appear 10 feet or more from the parent and creating large colonies of bittersweet. I am afraid that next year we will see lots of new vines springing from the ground in areas we are trying to clear this fall and winter. I expect that herbicides will be needed to control the Asiatic Bittersweet, and I expect to be battling it for years.

I have been told that the rare American Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) grows near the prairie, but I haven't convinced myself that I can tell the two species apart.