Rough bindweed
Smilax aspera
Family · Smilacaceae · Irritating
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The spiny heart-leaved climber that closes paths in southern scrub and grabs at clothes and skin. In winter it fills with clusters of red berries.
Scrubland · Oak woods · Walls and rocks · Streams and ditches
Also known assarsaparille, common smilax
How to tell it
A heart-shaped leaf, hard, glossy, with prickles on the margin and the veins. Two coiled tendrils at the base of each leaf, which is what tells it from everything else. An angular, armed stem.
What it is confused with
Bramble
Rubus ulmifolius
Both spiny and tangled. Bramble has a leaf split into five leaflets and bears black berries; rough bindweed has an entire heart-shaped leaf, tendrils, and red berries that are not eaten.
What it is for
The berries are not eaten. The root had folk medicine use and the name stuck to drinks, but the sarsaparilla of American sodas is a different species of the same genus.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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