Smilax lasioneura (Carrionflower) - photos and description
Male flowers in above photo.
Female flowers in above photo.
Female flowers in above photo.
General: Climbing plant with tendrils, plants with stiff stems, stems glabrous.
Flowers: Small green flowers in globose umbels growing from leaf axils. Umbels measured to 3 cm in diameter. Flowers unisexual with flowers of different sexes growing on separate plants. Male flowers measured at 7 mm diameter, female flowers measured at 5 mm diameter.
Leaves: Leaves alternate with cordate bases, leaf highlighted in above photo was 6.5 cm wide and 8 cm long, not including petiole. Leaves strongly veined. Very short hairs on bottom of leaves.
Height: Budd's Flora lists the plant's stems as growing to 1.5 m long, we measured plants to 106 cm tall.
Habitat: Moist woodlands, and scrub, where they attach to and climb on nearby plants.
Abundance: Common, ranked as an S5 by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.
Origin: Native.
Synonym: Listed in some of the field guides we use as Smilax herbacea var. lasioneura, and, Smilax lasioneuron.
When and where photographed: These photos were taken June 4th, Fairy Hill, 30 km north of Regina, SK, and June 19th, in scrub along a railroad track, near Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan, 400 km north-east of our home in Regina, SK.