BITTERSWEET (Waxwork) 

 Celastrus scandens L. 



May 



Bottomland woods, 

 sand woods, roadsides 



The bittersweet vines have a way of draping 

 themselves all over the trees and bushes of 

 their chosen sandy woods, yet they remain 

 conspicuous during most of the year. The 

 flowers are produced in long clusters of five-petaled blossoms, the stami- 

 nate on one vine, the pistillate on another, the latter fertilized by pollen 

 carried by insects from the staminate blossoms. Staminate vines never 

 bear fruit even though they may flower abundantly. 



All summer the dark green leaves of the bittersweet vines conceal 

 the gi'owing clusters of green fruits.- The woody vines gi'ow a little 

 longer, twine a little more finnly around trees and bushes, and advance 

 toward autumn ripening. They do this inconspicuously as the corky layer 

 forms between leaf and stem where the leaf joins the woody part. This 

 does not permit water to enter the leaf while plant starches in it are 

 changed to sugar and are carried away to be stored in the woody stem 

 and roots. Now as September comes, the bittersweet le<aves grow pale 

 green, translucent green-yellow, and they drop easily from the vines. A 

 frost brings them down in a sudden shower. 



Now the woody vines are brilliant with great masses of orange seeds. 

 The yellow-orange seed-pods split tbrec ways to reveal seeds enclosed 

 in orange-scarlet, wrinkled flesh. 



Bittersweet in autumn is eagerly gathered by i)eople who come to 

 the woods and sometimes unwisely tear down old vines which will require 

 many years to reach their former abundant fruiting. Fruits which remain 

 are even more eagerly garnered by cardinals and late robins and others 

 which live during the winter in Illinois woods. 



