HoneysuckleIt is towards the end of fall, and every other plant has lost its leaves, but honeysuckle persists. Her tapered leaves are still dark green, despite the cool weather. Honeysuckle isn’t from here, and marches to the beat of her own drum. She doesn’t care that she’s different. She likes to be able to keep green longer and provide for animals. She also likes that she works harder and longer than everyone else, and it shows. She’s still growing long after everyone else is asleep.
She likes being around in autumn for the birds. Honeysuckle loves the birds. She grows seeds surrounded by sweet flesh, and they eat her berries and spread her seeds around. Honeysuckle also loves the deer for the same reason. She doesn’t play nice with other plants, but she’s willing to work with animals. She loves how animals get to move around and travel far, and she’s happy if any part of her can do the same. The insects drive Honeysuckle mad. They don’t do anything to help her, they just take and take and take. The caterpillars eat her leaves, and the aphids suck everything out from her. She has to work even harder to make up for the damage they do. Each bite stings, and each aphid sucks a little more energy out of her. Instead of giving in, she uses it as motivation. Eventually, winter comes, and honeysuckle is forced to take a break. She brings the nutrients back in from her leaves and lets them fall to the ground to be recycled. And now for her least favorite part of the year: Winter. She is not particularly patient. She wants to get back to work, back to growing, but can’t. This winter is even harsher than normal. Honeysuckle gets encased in ice and snow, and it doesn’t stop coming down for days, then takes even longer to thaw. Her patience is wearing thin, and she just wants to get growing. The days are just barely beginning to warm up, and honeysuckle’s leaves are already unfurling. She has always been an early riser. Her branches are stretching up and away while the other plants are still asleep. She shades out other plants before they even have leaves out to notice. Honeysuckle is determined and moves fast. The early bird gets the worm, and the early plant gets the sun. She’s so excited to get to stretch her stems after waiting for months. Why wait, when she could get to work right away? If the other plants woke up when she did, maybe they wouldn’t complain about her so much every year. She’s not hogging the sun, they’re just being lazy. She is already in the swing of things for weeks while all of the other plants are still fast asleep. Finally, the other plants start to wake up. Some are shocked at how much Honeysuckle has grown. She towers over them, taking all the sun to herself. Some plants die before they see the new spring. Others are stunted by her glory. Other plants call her selfish, but she thinks she’s just a hard worker. Other plants beg her to share, but she just tells them to work harder. She’s finally in her element again, reaching to fill up more and more space. She wants to be even bigger than last year, big enough that she’ll have enough berries for all the deer and all the birds. Big enough that she won’t be bothered by the insects. It’s hot and dry outside, and honeysuckle is parched, but two human children still come stomping through the forest. They sit under her shade and collect her flowers in their laps. They pull out the stigmas and let the sweet droplets spread across their tongues. Honeysuckle doesn’t like humans any more than most humans like it, but this could have been worse. She would have preferred a honeybee, who wouldn’t have destroyed her flowers, but the children will still spread her pollen around to the next plant they visit, and she still has plenty of flowers left. Kids can never resist her flowers. Even if it’s not the right time of year for them to find nectar in her flowers, they can’t resist trying. No one else pays this much attention to her, and she likes making the kids happy, even if they don’t benefit her. She likes feeling needed and unique. No other plant is as recognizable to the kids as she is. Adult humans don’t do much to her, at least most of the time. They know her name, and sometimes they point her out to their companions. They don’t normally pick off her flowers, and they can’t eat her berries. Most of the time they don’t do anything at all, and just glace right past her. She doesn’t mind them. Until one day, a group of three come by. She hears their stomping. And then the sound of branches snapping. More stomping. More snapping. They’re not speaking, but they’re louder than any other group of humans Honeysuckle has ever heard. One of them points at a different honeysuckle bush down the path. They walk over and start to tear her apart. They crack and stomp her branches and discard them on the ground. Every bit of her gets torn apart from her roots. She can’t come back without leaves. She’s still there for now, but she’ll be dead soon. They continue down the patch, ravenously tearing apart an entire community of honeysuckle. Honeysuckle knows she’s next, she’s seen this before, but it was so long ago she nearly forgot. She was so small at the time they didn’t notice her. She barely escaped then, and knows she won’t be that lucky this time around. She can’t do anything but wait her turn and watch the massacre around her. The humans call Honeysuckle invasive. Seems like they’re the ones being invasive. Honeysuckle was here first, they’re just coming through and wrecking everything. After agonizing, terrifying minutes, one of the humans reaches her. He grabs her branches and kicks her apart. Crack, crack, crack. She is torn limb from limb. Her leaves and berries fall to the ground. All of her hard work is torn apart. The human walks away, off to destroy another honeysuckle, seemingly unaware of the violence he is committing. Honeysuckle is left with nothing. Just roots and the remnants of a few bare branches. She’s a goner. At least her berries are closer to the ground now, so hopefully one of them can replace her. But she’ll be dead any day now. There’s nothing to do but wait. Honeysuckle has always hated waiting. She gets weaker and weaker. The plants she had stunted start to grow more in her absence. She hadn’t realized how much of an impact she had. Flowers and grasses, and even a little maple tree shoot up in her wake. Maybe they were right, maybe she was being selfish. Honeysuckle wishes that she had been more of a team player, maybe then she wouldn’t be in this situation. Maple finally has a chance. He has more patience, and doesn’t feel the need to grow up fast and messy. Maple stretches up slowly. He collaborates with the plants around him. He doesn’t wake up early or stay green late. He values work and rest. He’s grateful to humans, for once. Honeysuckle doesn’t belong here; he does. He heard the humans say that honeysuckle was invasive, but he isn’t sure what that means. Honeysuckle has been here as long as he can remember. In any case, Maple is glad the humans came along and gave him a chance. Maple grows tall, tall enough that honeysuckle can’t hurt him when it comes back. And Honeysuckle always comes back. He’s strong enough to not feel threatened by her frantic growth. Maple takes his time. Maple lives long enough to see the humans come back over and over again, just like the honeysuckle. Every year though, a little less honeysuckle returns. The humans notice this too. Eventually, the honeysuckle doesn’t come back. And the humans don’t either. Well, not the same humans. Different ones come, and the children who once loved Honeysuckle’s flowers so much learn how to climb up Maple instead. Maple isn’t sure whether or not he’s glad honeysuckle is gone. She did provide for the birds and deer, as least. But they find better things to eat, and Maple doesn’t worry about them anymore. But isn’t it bad to wipe out a whole species, Maple thinks? But then it sees how much more plant diversity there is without honeysuckle’s competition. There’s just so much more, and they work so much more nicely with each other. This is what the forest could have been all along, if it wasn’t for honeysuckle. Maple gets to be a home for the birds, something Honeysuckle never was. Maple also gets to grow much taller, and see much further, than honeysuckle ever did. He wishes he could show it to her, show her how far patience can get you. Citations
“Amur Honeysuckle (Lonicera Maackii).” Ohio Environmental Council, 21 Mar. 2018, theoec.org/blog/amur-honeysuckle-lonicera-maackii/. “Amur Honeysuckle.” WIGL, Woody Invasives of the Great Lakes Collaborative, 25 July 2020, woodyinvasives.org/woody-invasive-species/amur-honeysuckle/. “Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis.” Center for Earth and Environmental Science, cees.iupui.edu/blog/amur-honeysuckle-why-we-care. “Ohio Perennial and Biennial Weed Guide.” Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/weedguide/single_weed.php?id=54. |