Tree and vine

Out on a walk, a came across a woman attaching a vine to a one of those wire fences with the cross-hatched skeletons, like those that often surround schoolyards. I asked what she was up to, and she explained that she had pulled it off the redwood tree that towered above us and was encouraging it to grow horizonally rather than vertically. Her theory was that it might be disturbing the redwood-- it was pulling down the lower branches, and was shamelessly using the tree to get minutely closer to the sun.

To be honest, I thought it looked like a fun task, and offered to help. This particular vine didn't attach itself via suckers, but by little springlike offshoots that could coil around things, such as branches or wire fences. It was a pretty neat vine, actually, and it had lovely purple flowers that looked kind of like space aliens.

Only later did it occur to me that it might be odd to think that a 10-foot-long vine was hurting a 40-foot-tall redwood. That was just a human interpretation-- how did we know there wasn't some hidden benefit to the redwood? Why assume competition and battle rather than assuming cooperation?

Perhaps we were harboring some hidden favoritism for the magestic redwood and annoyance with the fast-growing, apparently opportunistic vine.