Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

SAW GREENBRIER

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Smilax bona-nox L.

Wildcat Glades, Newton County, Missouri

Height: Vines, to 26 feet

Family: Smilacaceae - Catbrier Family

Flowering Period: April, May

Trunks:

Dioecious; stems climbing; branches terete to 4-angled, armed, prickles green, sometimes black at apex, flattened, rigid, .16 to .5 inch, tendrils present; bark green, smooth; wood greenish white, soft.

Twigs:

Green, flexible, glabrous or older ones sometimes with stellate hairs, sharply angled, with few or no prickles; buds hidden by leaf bases, green, conic, .08 to .12 inch, apex acute.

Leaves:

Deciduous, sometimes tardily so, alternate, simple; stipules adnate to petiole proximally, distal ends free as tendrils; petiole .28 to .6 inch; blade ovate to arrowhead-shaped or fiddle-shaped, 1.2 to 4 inches long, 1.2 to 3.2 inches wide, 3(-5) main veins arising from petiole, base cordate to truncate, margins entire, thickened, sometimes spinose-ciliate, apex rounded to short-apiculate, surfaces light green, sometimes with white blotches, lower surface glabrous or minutely pubescent, sometimes with scattered prickles along major veins, upper surface glabrous.

Flowers:

Inflorescences axillary, umbels, 10-45-flowered; peduncles .6 to 2.4 inches; pedicels .16 to .3 inch. Flowers unisexual, radially symmetric; tepals 6, distinct; corolla pale green, .12 to .18 inch, oblong, apex obtuse; staminate: stamens 5-6; pistillate: staminodes present; pistil 1, ovary superior, 2-locular.

Fruit:

September-October; berries, black, globose, .24 to .3 inch diam., fleshy, glabrous; seed 1, dark red, globose to ellipsoid, ca. .16 inch diam., pitted, attachment scar black.

Habitat:

Floodplain and upland forests and woodlands, thickets, stream banks, fencerows.

Distribution:

Southeast corner of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Since they lack a cambium layer, greenbriers do not produce true wood or bark.

Saw greenbrier staminate flowers