invasive weed
pictures taken in may (left) and june (right).
the dreaded bittersweet! a notorious invasive in the eastern us. a quintessential invasive, really. this is an aggressive vine with distinctive leaves and bright orange roots. those orange roots grow as fast and aggressively as the rest of it; bittersweet is remarkably difficult to pull, as the roots go far and deep - often deeper than you'd expect based on the size of the plant.
bittersweet grows in massive blankets, twining around anything it can grab - including itself. in addition to trees and bushes, you might also see it climbing up telephone poles. (there's some trying to strangle a tulip in the front yard here!)
this is one of those vines that literally strangles trees - it wraps so tightly around them that it kills them. if it doesn't throttle them, it can break them by amassing too much weight on them. its blanketlike infestations also block out the light for anything underneath them, of course.
its bright orange-red berries in the fall help it spread its seeds. they're not edible for humans, but they are for birds and such.