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Tuesday - June 02, 2009

From: molino, FL
Region: Southeast
Topic: Vines
Title: Identity of a thorny vine in Florida
Answered by: Jimmy Mills

QUESTION:

Area: panhandle of FL Problem: thorny vine with large potato like roots, rapid growing and very invasive. grows in summer time. thanks

ANSWER:

Identifying plants from a description can be difficult if not impossible ,but Mr. Smarty Plants thinks this could be  cat briar Smilax bona-nox (saw greenbrier) which is distributed across the Southeastern US, or one of its siblings in the genus Smilax.

We're going to try a two step approach: first, I've found some websites with descriptions and images of this plant. Check these out to see if your plant resembles any of the images.

University of Vermont

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The second step is for you to visit the Ask Mr. Smarty Plants  Plant Identification page to read instructions for taking and submitting photos of your plant for identification. 

 

 

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