keys to the vascular plants of east texas - Botanical Research ...

SMILAX/SMILACACEAE
1119
times woody; stems usually � prickly, sometimes strikingly so; leaves alternate, short-petioled,
bearing paired tendrils from the petioles; leaf blades usually glabrous or nearly so (hairy in 2 species),
quite variable in shape, making identification of single leaves extremely difficult, with the
several main veins longitudinal and the secondary veins in a net-like arrangement; flowers in
peduncled axillary umbels; perianth green or yellow-green to bronze, small; tepals 6; stamens 6;
pistil 1, usually of 3 carpels; pistillodes and staminodes often present in flowers of opposite sex;
ovary superior; fruit in East TX species a 1–3(–6)-seeded blackish or bluish black or red to orange
berry ca. 4–10 mm long, in some species ripening during the year following flowering.
AA genus of ca. 350 species nearly worldwide in tropical and subtropical areas, with a few in temperate
regions (Holmes 2002c). Most Smilax species are easily recognized in the field as woody
vines armed with prickles; they frequently make moving through East TX forests difficult or
painful—hence common names such as BULLBRIER, HELLFETTER, BLASPHEMEVINE, and DEVIL
GREENBRIER. The sarsaparilla of commerce is obtained from a South American species and was
used medicinally as a tonic, for digestive disturbances, or in treating rheumatism; the active substances
are steroidal saponins (Dahlgren et al. 1985). The young shoots of many species grow quite
rapidly, are soft and succulent, and can be eaten as a vegetable like asparagus (Coker 1944; Judd
1998; Yatskievych 1999). The tuberous rhizomes of some species (e.g., S. smallii) were valued as
food by Native Americans, as they could be beaten and used for bread or mush after the fibrous
material was removed (Coker 1944). Smilax species are also an important food for wildlife
(Holmes 2002c); deer, for example, eat the foliage. The following treatment is modified in part
from those by Coker (1944), Duncan (1967), and Holmes (2002c). (A classical name from Greek,
smile, rough, a grater, or rasping, in reference to the sharp prickles, used variously by Theophrastus,
Dioscorides, and Pliny for Smilax aspera L., Taxus baccata L., or Quercus ilex L.—Judd 1998)
REFERENCES: Morong 1874; Pennell 1916b; Coker 1944; Mangaly 1968; Vines 1960; Duncan 1967,
1975; Godfrey & Wooten 1979.
1. Stems herbaceous, annual, without prickles, to 3 m or less long; ovules (= immature seeds) usually
2 in each carpel; species rare in East TX in the Pineywoods ___________________________ S. lasioneura
1. Stems woody, perennial, usually but not always prickly (usually prickly at least near base), varying
in length but often much more than 3 m long; ovules solitary in each carpel; including species
widespread and common in East TX.
2. Stems hairy, not prickly; lower (= abaxial) surface of leaf blades densely hairy; plants trailing,
suberect, or low climbing (� 1 m tall); fruits red, apically pointed; in East TX known only from
the Pineywoods _________________________________________________________________ S. pumila
2. Stems glabrous (S. bona-nox can rarely have dark stellate hairs), usually but not always prickly
(usually prickly at least near base); lower surface of leaf blades glabrous or rarely minutely
hairy; plants sometimes erect but usually high climbing; fruits red, orange, black, to bluish
(due to a waxy bloom), not apically pointed; including species widespread in East TX.
3. Leaves evergreen, the blades conspicuously thick-coriaceous, oblong to oblong-linear or
oblong-lanceolate to rarely broadly linear; leaf blades with only 3 main veins, the midvein
on proximal third of lower leaf surface more prominent than lateral veins, the veins indistinct
on the upper surface; fruits black, 1-seeded, ripening late in the next year following
flowering ___________________________________________________________________ S. laurifolia
3. Leaves deciduous or evergreen, the blades leathery to firm-coriaceous but not thick and
usually without oblong blades; leaf blades usually with more than 3 main veins (sometimes
3 in S. glauca), with midvein scarcely or no more prominent than the lateral veins on
lower leaf surface, the veins sometimes distinct on the upper surface; fruits red to orange,
black, or bluish (due to a waxy bloom), 1–3-seeded, ripening the same year as flowering (or
in the summer of the next year in S. smallii).
4. Leaf blades glaucous (= whitened, silvery, or bluish gray) below when fresh (and usually
also when dry); peduncles (= stalks of inflorescence) longer (usually much longer) than
petioles of subtending leaves __________________________________________________ S. glauca