It’s August, and that means the porcelainberries are out.
The first time I noticed this plant, somewhere on the walk between home and work, I had no idea what I was seeing. Grapes? The leaves looked like grapes, but the fruits looked like so much more. Some kind of fabulous Easter confection. Chocolate covered in a hard candy shell, say.
A quick check with smart Facebook friends gave me the answer: Porcelainberry. And the hatred.
People really don’t like this plant. It’s an invasive species, but it used to be sold for planting in gardens. In fact, a lot of the references to it on the internet are still about what kind of yard it will thrive in. It’s a vine, a member of the grape family, and it has a habit of escaping and strangling other trees.
The one I stopped to look at Tuesday morning is growing on a fence along a railroad line, the kind of place where invasive species thrive.
Stopping invasive species seems a bit like trying to hold back a flood. How would you ever kill every single porcelainberry that has escaped domestication and spread across the eastern U.S.? Even as porcelainberry vines are destroyed by weed-fighting volunteers in nearby Rock Creek Park, this plant will still be here, offering its berries to hungry birds, who will eat the berries and poop the seeds everywhere.
Maybe someone will get ambitious some day and start eradicating invasive species from all the neglected lots, dormant construction sites, and unloved green spaces of the world. Until they get to this fence, I’ll get a kick out of those crazy fruits.
Photo: Helen Fields, Tuesday morning
The hot, thick summer air in Cambridge, Massachusetts, can make you feel like you’re sitting in a sauna, wrapped in a soaking-wet wool blanket. As a recent, temporary transplant, staying in a house without air conditioning, I needed a place to cool off.
In the part of your mind that is still animal, still wild, you remember fight or flight; the possibility of paws holding you down, and the hinge of jaws upon you. The thought no longer goes through our minds the way it must have long ago. Sometimes, though, the memory returns.
