Smilax rotundifolia

A tough, woody, high-climbing vine, from long, slender rhizomes. The stems are strong and round to four-angled with branches bearing large flattened prickles and often many tendrils. The leaves are shortly petioled, bright-green on both sides, lustrous, and thin, predominantly round to cordate and about 4.5-10 cm long. The berries are blue-black with a whitish coating and usually two or three seeds. No spines on leaf. Pink to purple petiole.

The following Information is for the genus Smilax: Animals that eat its fruit: Wood duck, Cardinal, Catbird, Common crow, Fish crow, Yellow-shafted flicker, Mockingbird, Robin, Fox sparrow, White-throated sparrow, Brown thrasher, Hermit thrush, Cedar waxwing, Pileated woodpecker, Attwater's wood rat, Wood rat. Animals that eat its fruit, leaves, and buds: Greater prairie chicken, Wild turkey. Animals that eat its fruit and stems: Black bear, Beaver, Opossum, Mearns cottontail rabbit, Raccoon, Fox squirrel, Gray squirrel. Animals that eat the plant: White-tailed deer (Martin et al. 1951).

A gallery forest species that creeps into prairie in the absence of fire. The Acadian French name for all the members of the genus Smilax is "cantaque" . The name comes from the Choctaw name for greenbriar (Holmes 1990). Common greenbriar grows in moist to dryish thickets and woods and evergreen shrub bogs in Louisiana and east Texas It ranges from Canada south to Florida and west to Texas. The young shoots are edible raw or cooked. The roots are reportedly ground for use as flour and boiled with sugar to make jelly (Chase 1965).

Swampy or moist boggy thickets, low pinelands, open woods, roadsides, deciduous woods.