Wild Blackberries in an Azalea Bush (05/25/15)

Here is a lovey little wild blackberry vine growing in an azalea bush right outside my front door. Vines typically use a hosting structure to allow themselves to grow vertically at a rapid rate to afford themselves a greater gradiency of light radiation from the sun. The blackberry vine has small ragged cut-edged leaves that appear to be a somewhat darker shade of green than the leaves of the azalea. This would denote that the color pigments used for photosynthesis for the blackberry vine may differ somewhat from that of the azalea bush. This is also a trade-off for survival. The vine produces sweet berries to entice organisms to act as a method of dispersal. The trade-off is that this requires a great deal of energy, and thus small leaves with a darker color pigment would have access to different gradiencies of light radiation. The vine is using the azalea to support its primary stalk and major extension branches as the vine itself does not posses the rigidity to support itself alone. The blackberry vine, while not parasitic to the azalea, does interfere with the root system of the azalea. It steals resources, water and nutrients, from the surrounding soil. This leaves the azalea at odds with the blackberry vine and in competition for resources in the underlying area. Wild blackberries can be crucial parts of ceratin organisms' diets, such as various mammals and birds. These consumers of the blackberries ingest and disperse the seeds, usually in similar areas, like other bushes supplying berries, and thus typically appear in clustered dispersion.

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