I got stuck thinking about plants in the genus Smilax after writing about them last time out. It is such a great genus of plants, and as I discussed in my last column, most people only see them as a nuisance. I think they might be one rank below yellow jackets (Vespula spp.) and poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) as the most despised organisms in the woods.
And that’s unfortunate, as I really want you to fall in love with them. For the record, I’d like you to fall in love with yellow jackets and poison ivy, as well. “All God’s critters, great and small” and all that, you know?
Briars, like greenbriar (Smilax rotundifolia) have important roles in the ecosystem. Greenbriars are the host plant to the spotted phosphila moth (Phosphilla miselioides), the curve-lined owlet moth (Phyprosopus callitrichoides), and to a couple of moths whose caterpillars are leaf miners and can be found eating the insides of greenbriar leaves, the Proleucoptera smilaciella and Marmara smilacisella. While neither of these leaf miners have common names, I find it interesting that their specific epithet, or the second name in their scientific name, both reference the Smilax genus. That is their host plant, and without the smilax, we wouldn’t have those moths.
Briar flowers provide nectar and pollen for a variety of insects including bees and a large variety of flies. Yes, flies. Flies are actually the second most important pollinating insect in the world after bees. I want you to love flies, too.
Briar patches are also great for providing habitat and refuge to small birds and animals in the forest, who can seek shelter in the thorny tangles of briars. These animals are provided not only with shelter, but the ripe berries feed everything from ducks, grouse, turkeys and crows, to possums, raccoons, squirrels and even bears.
In the famous folk tales from Black American traditions, Br’er Rabbit gets himself thrown into the briar patch as a trick to escape becoming the fox and bear’s evening supper. It’s interesting to me that “Br’er” sounds so much like “briar” that it wasn’t until researching this article that I learned that “Br’er” was a contraction for “brother.” I had always assumed it was like “Briar Rabbit.” Turns out, it’s “Brother Rabbit.”
While the briar patch that Br’er Rabbit gets tossed into is most likely a tangled mess of common blackberry brambles (Rubus allegheniensis), it does afford me the opportunity to talk about the different spellings of the word briar. Or is it spelled brier? In the previous article, I spelled all of the Smilax plants as brier, like greenbrier, catbrier and sawbrier. I could have equally written greenbriar, sawbriar and catbriar instead, as I have in this article, for both are accepted spellings in common English usage, and in the common names of the plants, themselves.
While I don’t want to get tangled up in a discussion of semantics and misspellings, I also don’t want to get tangled up with most members of the Smilax genus. However, there are species of Smilax that grow in Southern Appalachia that actually don’t have thorns. And these species are all also herbaceous perennials, as they die back to the ground and reemerge from the roots each year.
These are the carrion-flowers, so named because the scent the flowers make smells like rotting meat so the plant can better attract their fly pollinators. Last year on one of my guided wildflower walks, we observed flies pollinating the large globe-shaped flower clusters of smooth carrion-flower (Smilax herbacea). After describing the fetid odor of the flowers, I watched in awe as one after another, each member of that day’s walk lined up to get a good whiff.
I was as shocked as Br’er Fox watching Br’er Rabbit play and dance around in the briar patch. Or was that a brier patch?
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. bigelownc@gmail.com.)