or as some people call it, the wild cucumber, is very decorative. That means it has beautiful curves and twists, and its small, white flowers, prickly, egg-shaped fruit, and long tendrils twisted spirally, like a steel watch-spring let loose, make us love to look at it. The leaves are pretty, too, being shaped almost like a five-pointed star. Sometimes this vine is cultivated and you will find it trained up on strings to shade the porch, or over the kitchen-door of a farmhouse. Wherever you find it, it is beautiful. A large jar filled with sprays of the wild balsam makes a good centrepiece for the table, or a tall vase holding some upright and some drooping sprays looks very pretty when placed near a window where the light will fall on it. Do not mix other flowers with it, its own blossoms are sufficient.
Wild Clematis
The wild clematis is another beautiful vine, and you will find it clambering over fences and bushes along the country road. Its masses of white flowers fill the air with a sweet, spicy perfume that delights you.
You can gather the clematis when it is in blossom, and keep it fresh in water for some time if you put it in root ends down. This vine does not wilt as you carry it. Later in the season, when the white flowers have turned into balls of silvery fringe, the vine is lovely in a different way. Then you can gather great armfuls and take it home to hang over mirrors or picture-frames, letting it become quite dry. It is best to strip the leaves off the sprays at first because they are not beautiful when dry. In a day or two after hanging up your clematis the balls of fringe will become a mass of soft down which will cling to the vine for many weeks. Later, when it becomes dusty, take it down.
Bittersweet
Then there is bittersweet, another wild vine that we gather in the fall. It covers fences and bushes as the clematis does, but instead of turning into fringe balls its small, creamy white flowers become bunches of berries.
The berries are yellow at first; when ripe they split open and curl back to show the brilliant red seeds inside that look like coral beads.
Gather the bittersweet while the berries are yellow, strip off the green leaves, and hang the vine up dry or put it in a large vase without water. Then the berries will open and last all winter.