Impending Divorce

I've been interested in finding the highest places in the mountains of Eastern Washington.  None of them quite rise above treeline, but a few come close.  One summer, maybe five years ago, a friend and I decided to try hiking in to one.  It is 7300 feet tall, which is the highest place in Washington outside of the Cascades.

His wife wanted to come.  She hates hiking.  I think that it was because she didn't want her husband to be alone with me.  Whatever.

After a two hour drive up to the woods, our way was blocked by a logging operation.  Contractors had set up a high-line operation.  In fact, you can still see the skid trails from that on Google Earth.  We had to park a couple of miles downhill from the trailhead.  (In reality, no trail goes up to that peak- we would have had to cut across the wilds and bushwack our way up there.)

My friend and his wife bickered the entire way up that road.  It was uncomfortable.  It was actually kind of miserable- and I was left wishing that I'd gone up there alone.  It is grizzly country, though.  At least their constant fighting probably scared off the bears.

We didn't make it far that day.  They were not prepared for the kind of hike that I was planning- and I was not prepared for the loud arguments that they were willing to have in front of me.  Just before we turned around to go home, I found a Lonicera utahensis- the Utah Honeysuckle- in fruit.  The fruits look like red Gummy Bears- kind of translucent and bright red.  They bring back memories of my early childhood.  One grew near my house, and I always wondered at those bright, double berries.

I collected the fruits for the seed.

Out of three seedlings, one was variegated.  I decided to name it Lonicera utahensis 'Impending Divorce'

Here's a picture of what it looked like after 4 years.

Some variegated plants will continually revert to green foliage, and you just have to keep pruning out the normal growth in order to maintain the unusual foliage.  While it was still too young to know for sure, I was beginning to suspect that 'Impending Divorce' was a plant like this.  Not long after this picture was taken, I pruned off some green twigs.

A week later, the plant began to die.  Within two weeks, it was gone.  I think that it was killed by a pathogen such as a Phytophthora sp.- which probably gained a foothold in a new pruning wound.

I was heartbroken.

That plant had such potential.  I killed it- or, rather, another organism did.  It makes me wonder what kind of botanical marvels have never lived long enough to be propagated.

Oh yeah...  my friend and his wife divorced not long after.