The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1892-08-27
THE STRANGLER VINE,
A Pitiless Vampire of the yegetabl,
World.

A Pitiless 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 rc-
peated the tragedy of LAGOON. A
striking example of such a 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-psth connecting
Lotus pool and the Loch pass under a
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
a glen with sides of jagged rock, down
which the stream falls in 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 conical
tops. Forth from the rocks, looking in
their leafless 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 a
foot in diameter, dying, almost dead.
It's 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 EN- brace of relentless
enemy. A wild vine stem four inches
in diameter, springing from the soil
close by It's foot, divides near the
ground into two stalks-one of which
shoots straight aloft, to twine itself
among the branches; the other, the
strangler 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 and
more frequent turns as it mounts among
the boughs to the very top.
The vine evidently seized it's 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 it's great tensile
strength to resist being torn asunder.
In this battle without quarter, the
vine, 1attening and hardening under
the enormous strain, has sunk deeply
into the trunk, compressing the sap
wood through which the sap should
rise to nourish the branching head,
now perisMng literally from thirst and
starvation
Not only the fated tree, but the twin
shoot OF the stranger, starting at the
main stalk, equal in size, is caught in
its deadly embrace. Nine or ten feet
above the ground cell of the fratricide
encloses its brother vine between itself
and the tree, fattening it to a broad
thin sheet, above which the captive ex-
pands, as if in agony, into great knot,
from which its growth upward contin-
ues with marked diminution of size.
Still higher the arms of the strangler
curl repeatedly about those of its
weaker brother, throttling some of
them, and, holding the dead stalks in
their tendrils, reacA beyond to attach
themselves-to those still living.
Other smaller vines of the same
species dart from the waters edge into
the branches of the doomed tree, and
in their race, INTERVIEWING in number
less coils. the stronger stems actually
have pulled asunder some of the weaker
ones, and, rearing aloft, bear upward
with them the lifeless stalks fast held
in their twists and curls.-Clarence
Pullen, in Harper's Weekly.