Getting Caught Up in the Garden

You have seen it if you live at Holly Lake Ranch. That vine with the shiny green leaves, beautiful red or black berries, and thorns, prickles or spines (depending on species). Like you care if it is a prickle or thorn when the vine is stuck in the middle of your leg!! We are talking about Smilax or Greenbrier.

Run-in with Smilax

If you are curious, a prickle is a sharp outgrowth from the plant’s bark. A thorn is a modified stem. A spine is a sharp pointed modified leaf. Even more confusing is all true Greenbriers are Smilax but not all Smilax species are Greenbriers. Here is east Texas we are “blessed” with many species of Smilax but suffice it to say, we will call it Smilax.  

The red-berried Smilax (Smilax walteri) creeps over bushes at the edges of sandy swamps or near streams. It is a thin woody vine, which may be spiny or nearly spineless. Its leaf surfaces are shiny green and it bears red berries during the winter. It has long underground runners, but is not tuberous.

 

Walteri - photo courtesy of Benny Simpson's Texas Native Shrubs

Sarsaparilla Vine (Smilax pumila) can be found growing in the open sandy woods of east Texas. This weak, “unarmed” vine has few tendrils at the nodes and prefers to climb over low plants. The young leaves and stem are densely pubescent (having fine hairs), becoming lustrous and smooth as it ages. It, too, has red berries but in the spring.

 

Pumila - photo courtesy of Benny Simpson's Texas Native Shrubs

China-root smilax (Smilax tamnoides) likes the damp woods and low areas near creeks. It has knotty rhizomes, while the vine runs over bushes and climbs into trees using its tendrils. The lower part of the stem is covered with needle-like spines. The shiny leaves are of different shapes.

Tamnoides - photo courtesy of Benny Simpson's Texas Native Shrubs

There are other species of Smilax: laurifolia, bona nox, routunifolia, smallii, and glauca, lasioneura that grow in Texas. One species is enough for me!

The one redeeming quality of this plant is that parts are edible. **DO NOT EAT ANY PLANT UNLESS YOU ARE 100% SURE WHAT THE PLANT IS.** On Merriwether’s blog "Foraging Texas", he states that tender vines, tendrils, tubers, leaves and berries are edible. He even makes vegan jello shots from this plant. Here is his blog: http://www.foragingtexas.com/2008/08/greenbriar.html.

You may not want this vine in your garden or yard and are having trouble getting rid of it. No amount of cutting or spraying will do the trick. The problem is tubers! Digging out the tubers is the only way to do away with this leg-eating vine. But if you read Merriwether’s blog, the tubers are high in starch and edible. Wonder if I can substitute tubers for potatoes in my diet?

Tubers from one plant

Baby Smilax - photo courtesy of Sonnia Hill

So, if you are out working in the woods, be sure to wear leather gloves, long sleeves and jeans. Be sure to tell your family where you are. If you should go missing, they will know you are being held captive by the thorns, prickles, and spines of Smilax!

And, as always, things could be worse. . . . 

Ann Reynolds

The Unique, the Strange and the Downright Weird

Every spring we have three plants that pop up like clockwork here in east Texas. The three Musketeers if you please. They are Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia), May Apple (Podophyllum peltatum) and Bladderwort (Utricularia spp.).

The Red Buckeye is one of the first native plants to leaf out and bloom in the spring. Chances are you miss it in the woods unless you are looking for it. I am lucky because mine is at the edge of my driveway. Leafing out begins with large, bronze buds which morph into shiny, dark green, palmate, compound leaves. Red Buckeye can grow to 8’-10’ tall. But the best part is the bloom. In early April, showy, erect 4” long panicles of bright red tubular flowers, which are hermaphrodite, appear. Hummingbird scouts that come through our area in late March and April use the flowers as a nectar source during migration. In the fall, a smooth, light brown fruit appears. Don’t eat – it is highly poisonous. Red Buckeye typically grows as an understory tree in the moist, rich, slightly acidic soils of the Pineywoods, but it is found as well on the Post Oak Savannah. Positively unique in many ways, don’t you think?

Red Buckeye

Red Buckeye bloom

Red Buckeye fruit

The strange Mayapple or Mandrake, Devil's apple, hog apple, Indian apple or umbrella plant (you decide) is an herbaceous perennial plant native to deciduous forests. The stalk which is 5-7 inches long will be topped with 1, 2 or occasionally 3 leaves which are deeply divided into lobes on the reproductive plant, or one umbrella-like leaf on a sterile plant. A single white flower, which has 6 petals located at the axil (V where the two leaves meet), will produce a yellow-greenish fruit. The ripened fruit, which our feral hogs love, is edible in moderate amounts, though when consumed in large amounts the fruit is poisonous. Some folks make jelly out of the fruit but with a name like Devil’s apple, I think I will pass.

Mayapple

Field of Mayapples

Mayapple flower

Mayapple fruit

Floating on our local lakes right now are the free-floating bladderworts which are annuals. They resemble a small wagon wheel with a flower stem in the middle. Inflated stalks form the spokes of the wagon wheel which support masses of submerged leaves coated with small round bladders called utricles. These submerged parts of the bladderwort provide habitat for many micro and macro invertebrates which in turn are used for food by fish and other wildlife. Sweet yellow 3-lobed flowers with a ‘spur’ are above the water. These plants are carnivorous and capture small organisms with their underwater leaves. (Insert theme from Twighlight Zone.) Sensitive, hair-like projections surround the utricle's closed trapdoor. Water fleas, protozoa and other passing organisms that touch the hairs instantly trigger the flattened bladder to open. Like a suction bulb, the utricle inflates and inhales both water and prey. The trapdoor snaps shut, and the plant then secretes enzymes, which dissolve the organisms into nutrients. Weird! These plants can form dense mats but die off by July. The dead plants are decomposed by bacteria and fungi and provide food for many aquatic invertebrates. Bladderworts are one of Texas’ four flesh-eating plants.

Bladderwort

Bladderwort - picture taken
while kayaking

Bladderwort down by the dam

There you go. Not necessarily the good, bad and ugly but the unique, strange and downright weird.

FIFTH SEASON

Where I live we have 5 seasons - Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter

and Green Stuff.

Yes, we have an entire season of Green Stuff.

 The pollen from all the "new" is everywhere and it seems it never ends. 

But it does - just about the time the heat sets in.

So, if you don't like the cold, can't take the heat and have allergies to pollen, you are pretty much doomed here in the piney woods of east Texas.

And, then there is the lovely green stuff.