Happy Mystery Monday! Can you guess what is pictured in photo #1?
The answer to last week’s mystery is the Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, pictured in photo #2.
Virginia creeper is a fast growing, native climbing vine found throughout the eastern United States. While sometimes called five-leaf ivy, it isn’t an ivy at all: it is actually a member of the grape family. It can reach heights of up to fifty feet, climbing by means of tendrils tipped with adhesive holdfasts—also called “sucker discs”—that cling to bark, stone, or brick. Though it can overwhelm nearby vegetation and is difficult to remove from painted surfaces, it does not harm masonry the way some vines do: in fact, it is often used to keep buildings cooler by shading the masonry wall surfaces from the summer sun.
Its five palmate leaflets make it easy to distinguish from poison ivy’s familiar “leaves of three.” In spring and summer, the foliage is a rich green, turning brilliant red in early fall before dropping to reveal bare vines through winter. Small greenish-white flowers give way to clusters of hard blue-black berries that, due to their high oxalic acid content, are highly toxic to humans. These berries are not toxic to birds, and feed many—including chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers—through the colder months. Virginia creeper also serves as a larval host for several species of sphinx moth.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.
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