# Smilax sp, fencing, food and medicine



## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

Smilax sp, fencing, food and medicine, wasn't sure where to put it. Smilax is commonly used in Appalachian medicine as a very good anti-inflammatory. The ripe berries, dark blue, almost black, are sucked on for sore throat.

As I posted on another board I've been cleaning off an old fence that was wrapped up in sumac, cedar and smilax (and a few dozen fireant beds). When smilax, known locally as saw briar or bull briar, gets older the vine can be as thick as a finger. The thorns are nasty to say the least. I've gotten flat tires on the tractor from running over them.

When allowed to grow over a fence or brush it becomes a very effective fence in its own right, 3ft thick and as high as 10ft, a mass of thorns. Deer will eat tips and leaves but won't try to go through it. It takes several years to "groom" a natural fence but once established it's awesome. I know, I've been trying to cut one down for 3 days now.

Below is a great article by Green Dean on when and what parts to eat. I love the tips in spring, fried in butter like asparagus tips. Occasionally I will much one raw, tasty. I included a few photos, a tuber, thorns, fencing and tips.

http://www.eattheweeds.com/smilax-a-brier-and-that’s-no-bull/

_There used to be a field in Sanford, Florida, near Lake Monroe, that was nearly overrun with growing Smilax every spring. I could get a couple of quarts of tender tips daily over a few weeks, enough for many meals. Cooked like asparagus or green beans, they are excellent, and also edible raw in small quantities.

The tip grows from the end of the vine and gets tougher as one goes back along the vine. Technically that is called the meristem stage, that is, the growing part is almost always the most tender because the cells haven't decided what it is they're supposed to do, such as get tough and hold up the plant or create an ordor or the like.

The way to harvest smilax is to go back a foot or so from the end of the vine (more if it is a very large vine, less if small) and see if the vine snaps, breaks clean between your fingers. If not, move closer towards the growing end of the vine and try it again. Where the vine snaps and breaks is the part you can take and eat. Well-watered bull briers (Smilax bona-nox, SMEYE-laks BON-uh-knocks, that's SM plus EYE) in a field or on a sunny tree can produce edible shoots a foot long and third of an inch through. Smilax is from the Greek smilakos, meaning twining but there is more to that story. Bona-nox means "good night" and usually refers to plants that bloom at night.) The Spanish called them Zarza parilla, (brier small grape vine) which in English became sarsaparilla, and indeed sarsaparilla used to come from a Smilax.

Large roots are fiberous often called cat briar because of its thorns, or prickles, Smilax climbs by means of tendrils coming out of the leaf axils. Again, technically, it is not a vine but a "climbing shrub." No, I have no idea why someone thinks that's important or how they can tell the difference. My guess is a vine has one stem and a shrub has several.) I am filing it under "vine." Smilax are usually found in a clump on the ground or in a tree. They provide protection and food for over forty different species of birds

Young roots can be boiled or roasted and are an important part of the diet for deer, and black bears. Rabbits eat the evergreen leaves and vines, leaving a telltale (tell tail?) 45 degree cut. Beavers eat the roots. Smilax also has a long history with man, most famous perhaps for providing sarsaparilla. The roots (actually rhizomes) of several native species can also be processed (requiring more energy than obtained) to produce a dry red powder that can be used as a thickener or to make a juice. Young roots - finger size or smaller - can also be cooked and eaten. While the tips and shoots can be eaten raw a lot of raw ones give me a stomach ache.

It should be mentioned that early American settlers made a real root beer from the smilax. They would mix root pulp with molasses and parched corn then allowed it to ferment. One variation is to add sassafras root chips, which gives it more of the soft drink root beer flavor. Francis Peyre Porcher wrote during the Civil War in the 1860's "The root is mixed with molasses and water in an open tub, a few seeds of parched corn or rice are added, and after a slight fermentation it is seasoned with sassafras."_


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## Balls004 (Feb 28, 2015)

Thanks Cotton, nice to know we won't starve in our neck of the woods. Kinda like a back country happy meal, shoots and root beer!

Funny thing is, our goats won't hardly eat it. Weird critters....


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

That looks like the nasty stuff that grows everywhere in this part of Texas! 

I'll have to take some pics and compare...


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

The smilax tendrils will be putting up soon. Looking forward to it! Linc… run a google search on “smilax sp” and click images… There are a dozen or so species in the southeast. I know it grows in TX.


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