Bristly Greenbrier

Smilax tamnoides is marked by its dark, flexible, and unequal bristles and leaves with minutely serrulate margins basally. The far-western S. californica appears to be closely related but lacks the serrulate margins of the leaf bases.

Vines; rhizomes knotty, short. Stems perennial, climbing, branching, terete, to 7+ m × 9 mm, woody, glabrous, with prickles proximally, prickles usually absent distally; prickles blackish, unequal, 3–10+ mm, bristly, flexible. Leaves ± persistent in southern part of range, deciduous in north; petiole 1–2 cm; blade green, drying to light olive-gray, ovate-lanceolate, ovate, or sometimes pandurate, prominently reticulate, thin, 5–13 × 3–10 cm, not glaucous, glabrous (to prickly on major veins abaxially), base rounded to cordate, margins entire apically, minutely serrulate basally, thin, flat, not banded, not lobed, apex pointed. Umbels many, axillary to leaves, to 25-flowered, open to dense, spherical; peduncle often drooping, 1.5–6.5 cm. Flowers: peri-anth green to bronze; tepals 4–5 mm; anthers ± equaling to shorter than filaments; ovule 1 per locule; pedicel 0.4–1.2 cm. Berries black, globose, 6–10 mm, not glaucous.

Ont.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Nebr., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.

Flowering May--Jun.

Wet to dry woods, thickets, bottomlands; 0--400m.

Smilax grandifolia Buckley; S. hispida Muhlenberg ex Torrey; S. hispida var. australis Small; S. hispida var. montana Coker; S. tamnoides var. hispida (Muhlenberg ex Torrey) Fernald

Smilax tamnoides, common name bristly greenbrier, is a North American species of plants native to the United States and Canada. It is widespread from Ontario and New York State south to Texas and Florida.

The plant has been called Smilax hispida in many publications, but the name Smilax tamnoides is much older and under the botanical rules of priority it is the preferred name.

Smilax tamnoides is a climbing, prickly vine that supports itself on other vegetation. Flowers are green to brown, small but numerous in umbels; fruits blue to black without the waxy coating common on many other species of the genus.