This is somewhat a reprise of yesterday’s theme…though yesterday the Bittersweet was the ornament in the landscape (seascape?) and today it is the subject itself. 🙂 It would not be too much to say that East Point Sanctuary in Biddeford Pool is a riot of Bittersweet right now. This composite image catches both the mass and the macro effects.

I was inspired to do a little Bittersweet research this morning. Bittersweet is a vine that grows over and eventually dominates other bushy plants and small trees, and, as such, deserves it’s name. It certainly puts on a striking show in late fall when nothing else is very showy, but at a price to it’s hosts. There are actually two varieties in Maine: native American Bittersweet, and invasive Oriental Bittersweet. While both are climbing vines, and both will kill the vegetation they grow on, I suppose it might, from our standpoint, be preferable to be strangled by a native. ?? The berries, while pretty, are poisonous to most mammals…which is why they are still on the vine in late autumn. Birds to eat them, though I doubt they derive much nourishment from them.

This, unfortunately, is most likely Oriental Bittersweet, and therefore (except for beauty) has no real redeeming value. You can tell because the berries grow along the vines as well as at the tips. Most stands of Bittersweet today are actually a mix to the two species, or even a hybrid of the two. This could well be hybrid Bittersweet.

To complicate matters, neither of the common Bittersweet plants are actually Bittersweet at all. Both American and Oriental Bittersweet are more properly called “False Bittersweet” as the name Bittersweet belongs to Bittersweet Nightshade, also an invasive plant introduced to North American from Europe. While false bittersweets have a red berry in a yellow husk, Bittersweet Nightshade has berries that begin yellow, turn orange, and end up red. I found a few plants of Bittersweet Nightshade growing at East Point as well. And, like all Nightshades, Bittersweet is poisonous.

By the way…all of the Bittersweets get their name from the taste of the bark…which has been used in herbal medicine as a diuretic.

So what is the spiritual dimension to all this Bittersweet talk. It is Sunday. I will admit I got distracted in my research…but there is just so much to know. And knowing is such fun. Bittersweet fun, certainly…always…since looking deeply into anything is likely to turn up both the bitter and the sweet. That is the way of this world…or at least the way we humans see this world. And I think that is okay. As long as the world is…as long as life is…both bitter and sweet I think we are okay. We need to be able to taste the sweetness so that we do not despair…and we need to be able to taste the bitterness, so that we do not forget our capacity for causing pain. Sweetness is our delight. Bitterness keeps us humble. This is good. Bittersweet is good. You might say Bittersweet, like the plant, is beautiful. And beauty is always its own redemption.