A broadleafed evergreen, the vine-wicky produces its racemes in autumn. The fragrant flowers open in early spring. And spring is usually when the adventurous, those willing to leave a beaten path, will notice vine-wicky—the racemes of pendant flowers like so many lilies-of-the-valley in the wrong place!

Vine-wicky is rooted in the soft muck or humus soils of swamps. This shrub is a climber, but a very odd climber. It sends its branches under the bark of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), pond cypress (T. ascendens), and Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides); the tips emerge from a crevice in the bark, grow leaves, and produce flowers. It is a peculiar thing to see the trunk of a towering cypress decked out with sprigs of green and tiny white bells.

The seven species of Pieris are members of the Ericaceae, the heath family. The genus is strangely distributed. Beside the two species in the US, there is one on the Isla de la Juventud off the coast of Cuba, and four scattered from the Himalayas to the Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan.

(Compiled from: "Pieris", Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, NY, 1976; "Pieris D.Don", Neotropical Blueberries, The Plant Family Ericaceae, Dr. James L. Luteyn, New York Botanical Garden, 2006 and personal observation.)