Smilax bona-nox L.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Smilax bona-nox' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/smilax/smilax-bona-nox/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

Genus

Glossary

bloom
Bluish or greyish waxy substance on leaves or fruits.
umbel
Inflorescence in which pedicels all arise from same point on peduncle. May be flat-topped (as in e.g. Umbelliferae) to spherical (as in e.g. Araliaceae). umbellate In form of umbel.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Smilax bona-nox' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/smilax/smilax-bona-nox/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

A deciduous or partially evergreen climber, with angular or square branchlets, slightly armed with short, stout prickles. Leaves very variable, roundish, heart-shaped, fiddle-shaped, spear-shaped or three-lobed, 112 to 412 in. long, always pointed, green and glossy on both sides, often bristly or prickly at the thickened margins and on the nerves beneath, five- to nine-nerved; stalk 14 to 12 in. long. Flowers deep green, produced in umbels, the main-stalk of which is 12 to 1 in. long. Berries black with a bluish bloom, round, 14 in. across; six to twelve, sometimes more, in an umbel.

Native of N. America from Texas and N.E. Mexico to Florida, north to Kansas and Delaware; in cultivation 1739. A hardy species, allied to S. rotundifolia, differing in the thickened leaf-margins usually set with prickles or bristles and the longer-stalked umbels.