It’s so cool for us to find a new plant growing on our property. However, in confirming the variety on the internet, it seems that it actually grows as far south as Alabama and Georgia and that Wisconsin is at the western edge of its range.īy a weird coincidence, within a day or so of looking up this new plant, I read about a similar variety in Euell Gibbons’ book Stalking the Wild Herb. More common Smilax varieties are barbed and called Catbriers or Greenbriers and the species is edible. I had to run out and nibble it right away to discover that it does have a pleasant taste similar to asparagus. We’d have to have quite a few more plants before we could actually prepare it as a side dish, though. Peterson’s went on to say that it is common throughout most of the Northeast and North-central part of the county. The Latin name is Smilax herbacea and the common name refers to the smell of the flower. Now we know why flies were hanging around it! We discovered it is a Smooth Carrion Flower. Upon looking at the “Green” section of the Petersons Guide, we found a likely candidate on the page showing “6-Part Flowers Lengthwise Leaf Veins – Lily Family (Liliaceae)”. Photo by Kathy Shaw Discovering Smooth Carrion Flower This year, a vine came up in another part of the property that we had recently “released” by cutting down the invasive buckthorn and honeysuckle shrubs that were infesting it. Along with native plants, from jack-in-the-pulpits to lead plant, we were able to observe this vine flowering for the first time. The flowers are in the leaf axils and look like round broccoli florets and actually have small yellow flowers like broccoli, too. It had tendrils like a pea but didn’t actually cling to anything. Unfortunately, it was always nipped by deer or broken before it flowered. The past couple of summers, we have watched a single-stalked vine grow to 5 feet along our driveway. After we have a pretty good idea that we’ve identified the flower, we will search the internet using the Latin name of the plant to find additional pictures and further details from various sources. We can then refer to the descriptions to verify the details like leaf shape, growth habits, and flowering time. Our copy is well thumbed and over 20 years old. We like that it includes both native and alien (think weed) varieties and is arranged by flower color, making it easier to go through the pages of mostly black-and-white sketches to narrow down the search.
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