A see-through veil of vines clambers across an old barb wire fence, wrapping around young, rapidly growing trees and riding towards the sky. Come summer, when its leaves have fully flushed, this veil becomes an amorphous blob of green, hiding structure but revealing shape. The race for life between vine and tree favors vine. The young trees caught beneath this veil will die, collapse, crumble to earth. The liana will sag, new saplings will sprout and reach for sunlight, and the vine’s twining tendrils will be reaching, wrapping, clambering until those trees, too, are smothered. As in humanity, some members of the plant community cooperate and support each other; some do not. ~K