Herbariuma Backpackers project
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Rough bindweed

Smilax aspera

Family · Smilacaceae · Irritating

Rough bindweed (Smilax aspera)Rough bindweed (Smilax aspera)
Roger Culos, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Hans Hillewaert, CC BY-SA 3.0

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.

Where it grows

Scrubland · Oak woods · Walls and rocks · Streams and ditches

Also known as

sarsaparille, common smilax

In flower
In fruit

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

Harmless confusion

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.

Open sheet →

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.

Sources