Who Plants a Seed

This is a follow up to a story I wrote last fall about a fascinating vine I discovered growing on a fence on a frontage road beside I-20, between Edwards and Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Upon researching the vine, I found that it is called Balloon Vine, because the fruit resembles little balloons. They remind me of little Chinese lanterns ...

If you would like to read the posts from last fall before you read this last chapter, you can click on the following links:

Balloon Vines
Heart Seeds

As I mentioned in the "Heart Seeds" post, the seeds of the balloon vines are black and have markings on them resembling white hearts.

I was delighted when I discovered the little seeds, and saved some to plant with our granddaughter Avery Grace.

I also kept an unusual seed from some Carolina Moonseed vines that I photographed last December.

This is the little "moonseed" I kept ...

If you'd like, you can read about them here: December Lagniappe: Vines and Berries.

This past Saturday, the weather was absolutely perfect here in Mississippi, and my husband and I took Avery out to our land so we could plant our seeds. We let her pick out the spot and she chose a place near our "fairy tree," which you can see in the background of the next picture (I can't wait to tell you about our plans for the fairy tree this Spring).

Here are some of the seeds we planted. The wind was blowing, and she had to put her gloves on so they wouldn't blow away while I took this picture.

We've planted Morning Glory seeds a couple of times, and Avery has learned to be gentle when planting seeds ...

She wanted to water them, but we told her God would water them for us (and sure enough, He sent us a nice gentle rain yesterday).

Next, we put some sticks around the seedbed so we would know where we planted them.

To every thing there is a season, including a time to plant. Granted, January is probably not the ideal time to plant seeds, but since we have been waiting since September, we took advantage of the pretty weather and went ahead and planted ours.

Who knows ... perhaps this Spring we will discover some little green leaves poking their way through the dirt. And in the meantime, we will watch and wait ... and Avery will learn a little lesson about "having faith."

December Lagniappe: Vines and Berries

Now that winter has finally made an appearance here in Mississippi, the cold temperatures have taken a toll on the landscape, replacing the glorious Fall foliage of a few weeks ago with bare limbs and the drab colors of winter. But Nature has a way of compensating for the bleakness — in the form of vines with bright red berries growing wild in the woods and on fence rows along our roadsides.

In the spring and summer, those vines were probably covered in a profusion of wildflowers, but now their colorful fruit is all that remains. That reminds me of these lines from one of my favorite poems, William Wordsworth's Ode Intimations of Immortality ...

What though the radiance which was once so bright,
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be ...

Isn't that a beautiful way to describe the passage of the Seasons!

Last week, I noticed a tree in some woods not too far from our house that was almost completely covered with tangled vines and bright red berries — and I knew there were pictures there just waiting to be taken.

And sure enough, a couple of days later, under a brilliant blue sky for background, I went back and captured those pictures.

If you are a regular visitor to Southern Lagniappe, you know that if I'm not familiar with a flower or plant I photograph, I try to find out a little about it. I have seen vines like these, but never this close, and, after diligently browsing through several Google images and web sites featuring "wild vines with red berries," I discovered that these vines are called Carolina Moonseed (Cocculus Carolinus). They get their name from their seeds, which resemble a crescent moon.

Of course, I had to find out if my berries had "moonseeds," and upon dissecting one of the berries, I was delighted to see that mine, indeed, had a little crescent-shape in the center of the seed.

Isn't that awesome lagniappe!

Here are the rest of the pictures I captured ...

I love the graceful way the little tendrils of the vines curled and twined around the limbs ...

And the berries! — So plump and ripe, and almost translucent ...

A word of warning: Although it is beautiful, Carolina Moonseed vine is an invasive plant and should be used where its vgorous spreading nature would be appreciated. It may not be wise to move it from its native habitat if spreading is a concern. Once roots are established, it can be difficult to remove, so plant wisely.

For more information about Carolina Moonseed, you can visit Carolina Moonseed.