The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-06-20
SLOWLY sTRANGLING AN ELM.
Wisteria Vine That Is Like
Python and Acts Like One.

FytnOn ana Acts Like One.
Norwich Comm Letter.
At the top of the hill in Church street
in this city a big vegetable python is slow
~ strangling a large elm. 1t is a wisteria
vine. said to be the largest in the State.
garden of the George d. Colt place. next
TO the Storm Second congregational
S Sh ams At h Its base ! fd It is sS about a so, f0St In
trunk divides. and 1t sends one fork. an
important one. though a hundred feet in
handsome Colt house. Its other and i'm
teresting fork, consisting. of three huge
a board garden fence for twenty feet, and
then enters a stately elm that is at the
inner edge Of the tagged city walk. Noting
has a keen and lively impression that 1t is
q veritable serpent that has just leaped
upon the tree, enfolding Ii In a deathly
Before entering the elm the three strands
are firmly bound In a nonstrous cable with
emanating from the strands themselves.
~Singularly uncanny and menacing they
seem, i~nterlaced, twisted and contorted. as
and the fact that their bark Is smooth
and of a dusky brown hue. like the hide
or 5 that they are pythons. Immsdi-
ately after entering the elm the cable
divides into it's several strands. and each
travels up the tree In its eccentric,
serpentine way. One strand. three inches
thick. throws a coil so tightly about the
elm trunk, just below its lowest branches,
that it has cut a deep circular furrow into
the bark.
This coil is choking the life out of the
tree. Ascending, the threefold serpent filings
fold after fold about trunk and branches,
and finally lifting its plumed green crest
high above the elm's crown gathers IL into
its embrace. The tree is naturally thrifty
and luxuriant. but IL already shows plenti-
full tokens that its powerful enemy Is
throttling it. The tips of its lower boughs
are dry and dead, and aloft its foliage is
sere or yellow. Before another year il
doubtless will be dead, and then the vege-
table serpent may feast at Will on its leaf
less carcass. In the end it may pull the
trees skeleton down, and thereafter. If IL
has it's own licensed way. would travel on
to another elm in the street and throttle
and destroy that. When In full bloom. with
a hundred purple flower clusters. the wis
terra is gorgeous and beautiful, but one
easily fancies then that the splendid bios
SONS are notified patches on the python's
hide, and the vine does not seem so lovely.
Another vegetable curiosity of this town
is a giant syringa bush. the greatest one.
probably. in New England, whose crown Is
over ninety feet in circumference, shading
half a large lawn on Washington street.
A curious thing was noted on the part OF
a tree by c. F. Culver, who was chopping
in the woods among the hills OF Center Gro
ton, ten miles In the country. south OF this
city, a day or two ago. Mr.. Culver had
severed the trunk of a big white oak, but
very curiously the tree remained almost
perfectly erect. So he climbed a tree near
by, and found that the oak had dashed itself
to a neighboring tree by means of a long,
stout, whip-like t%entacle. which IL had shot
forth from one of its topmost boughs.
Bridging the space between the twin trees
the rear strand had attached itself TO the
trunk of the second tree and grown into
Ii. The t~entacle was round and smooth
and an inch in diameter. In the middle OF
1t is a knotty ridge that looks as II 1t was
a Joint.