Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Downy carrionflower

(Smilax pulverulenta)

galery
en

Description

Smilax pulverulenta, the downy carrionflower, is a North American species of plants native to the eastern and central United States. The plant is fairly common in the Ozarks, the Appalachians, and the Mid-Atlantic States, with isolated populations in Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Nebraska. Smilax pulverulenta is a climbing vine up to 250 cm (100 inches) tall, without prickles. Flowers are small and green; fruits dark blue to black, without the waxy coating common on other species in the genus. Smilax is a genus of about 300–350 species, found in the tropics and subtropics worldwide. In China for example about 80 are found (39 of which are endemic), while there are 20 in North America north of Mexico. They are climbing flowering plants, many of which are woody and/or thorny, in the monocotyledon family Smilacaceae, native throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Common names include catbriers, greenbriers, prickly-ivys and smilaxes. Sarsaparilla (also zarzaparrilla, sarsparilla) is a name used specifically for the Jamaican S. ornata as well as a catch-all term in particular for American species. Occasionally, the non-woody species such as the smooth herbaceous greenbrier (S. herbacea) are separated as genus Nemexia; they are commonly known by the rather ambiguous name carrion flowers. Greenbriers get their scientific name from the Greek myth of Crocus and the nymph Smilax. Though this myth has numerous forms, it always centers around the unfulfilled and tragic love of a mortal man who is turned into a flower, and a woodland nymph who is transformed into a brambly vine. On their own, Smilax plants will grow as shrubs, forming dense impenetrable thickets. They will also grow over trees and other plants up to 10 m high, their hooked thorns allowing them to hang onto and scramble over branches. The genus includes both deciduous and evergreen species. The leaves are heart shaped and vary from 4–30 cm long in different species. Greenbrier is dioecious. However, only about one in three colonies have plants of both sexes. Plants flower in May and June with white/green clustered flowers. If pollination occurs, the plant will produce a bright red to blue-black spherical berry fruit about 5–10 mm in diameter that matures in the fall. The genus has traditionally been considered as divided into a number of sections, but molecular phylogenetic studies reveals that these morphologically defined subdivisions are not monophyletic.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Order:Liliales
Family:Smilacaceae
Genus:Smilax
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