The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-07-21
THE STRANGER VINE.
A Pitiless Vampire of the Vegetable
World.


A PitiIess Vampire of the Vegetable
World.
In the vegetable not less than in the
animal kingdom exists the type of the
octopus, and in various phases is re-
peated the tragedy of LAGOON. A
striking example of such kind is af-
forded no further away than that
epitome of earth's choicest natural
beauty, New York's famous recreation
ground.
In the northern part of Central park,
opposite West 102d street, the stream
and bordering foot-path connecting
Lotus pool and the Loeb pass under
handsome arched bridge of ashlar-
pointed granite and freestone masonry.
The interior of the arch contains upon
one side recess for seat: on the other,
in tiny grotto, the stream widens to a
semi-circular pool.
The upper end of the arch opens upon
glen with sides of jagged rock, down
which the stream falls in a cascade.
Overlooked from the upland by decidu-
GUS trees, native pines and hemlocks,
fresh and vigorous, darken this ravine
with wide-spreading branches receding
upward to gracefully rounded conicaI
tops Forth from the rocks, looking in
their leafieSs state like knots of snakes,
and in bloom like their green and
Towering ambush, creep enormous wild
vines, bending and winding toward the
nearest trees to fasten to them, and
clinging by tentacles that forever tight
en- writhe upward about trunk and
branches.
Here on the south bank, close by the
bridge and water, stands pine tree
foot IN diameter, dying, almost dead.
Its dry falling bark limbs short and
lifeless except a few stunted boughs
still family green, and the decaying
blunted top show that it has succumbed
to the sitting embrace of a relentless |
enemy A wild vine stem four inches |
in diameter, springing from the soil !
close by its foot, divides near the |
ground into two stalks-one of which |
shoots straight aloft, to Irvine itself |
among the branches: the other, the .
stranger vine, goes directly to the tree,
to wind upward about its trunk. 1t /
encircles it three times below the lower
branches, and laps it in shorter ard
more frequent turns as it mounts among
the boughs to the very top
The vine evidently seized its victim
when the tree was considerably small
Ter than at present, and with the
growth of the two came life and death
struggle, the one forcing its circumfer-
ence outward with the pressure of
natural expansion against the folds of
the other, which, stretched to the ut
most, has exerted its great tensile
strength to resist being torn asunder.
In this battle without quarter, the
vine, hatteuing and hardening under
the enormous strain, has sunk deeply
wood through which the sap should
rise to nourish the branching head,
now perishing literally from thirst and
Not only the fated tree, but the twin
shoot of the stranger, starting at the
main stalk, equal in size, is caught in I
its deadly embrace. Nine or ten feet
lbove the ground cell of the fratricide
encloses its brother vine between itself {
lhO bllC OISS, AdJlCiIlIS III 10 IL DTtdu
hin sheet, above which the captive ex- '
bands, as if in agony, into great knot,
from which its growth upward contin-
les with marked diminution of size
Still higher the arms of the stranger I
;url repeatedly about those of its ]
weaker brother, throttling some of :
hem, and, holding the dead stalks in
heir tendrils, reach beyond to attach
themselves to those still living.
Other smaller vines of the same {
species dart from the waters edge into s
he branches of the doomed tree, and i
n their race, INTERVIEWING in number
ess coils. the stronger stems actually
nave pulled asunder some of the weaker c
mes, and, rearing aloft, bear upward /.
With them the ifeless stalks fast held !
n their twists and curls.-Clarence y
julien, in Harper's Weekly.