Smothering

Clematis vitalba is known here as Old Man's Beard; presumably because it runs rampant and untidily smothers other plants in the Bush. It kills the plants that it grows on. I passed this example of it on a jog during a prolonged pause in the rain. 

I had started out mid afternoon, having decided on a walk. And indeed I walked until the nearly flat bit past the water treatment station. At that point my legs decided they needed to run. I ran most of the rest of the way.

As well as the photo of this aggressively growing woody vine, I tried for photos of the clouds being blown up the south-western face of the Waitakere Range. One would need the eye of faith to see in the photo what I saw in the real. So the vine suffocating at least one tree is today's blip.