The holidays are quickly approaching. News-Press storyteller Amy Bennett Williams has a good idea what she WONT be decking her home with this season.
The suggestion came at the end of an article on natural holiday decorations, in the "garlands" category. "Dress up fir, pine or cedar from the Christmas tree lot with bows," read the helpful text. "Or search the woods for smilax, a lacy vine that gives a more delicate look than other evergreens."
Lacy? I can think of lots of adjectives for smilax, but lacy wouldn't be one. Ferocious, fanged or fearsome, sure. These vining villains are the mosquitoes of the vegetable kingdom: obnoxiously ubiquitous, but depended on by a host of other species, so it seems poor form to call for killing them all with fire. (Brimstone would be a nice touch too).
I'd venture to guess they're why most area parks and preserves come equipped with boardwalks — along with standing water and saw palmettos. They're also why I wear boots so often: to shield myself from their talons or hide the striated scarlet evidence if I've forgotten and traipsed into the woods un-booted. Drop by drop, I've probably donated several pints to the region's wilderness over the years.
Catbrier, greenbrier, bullbrier are all common names of plants in the Smilax genus. A dozen or so species live in Florida, especially in its deep green places. In the plant's defense, the tender tendrils at the tip of each vine can be snapped off (satisfying, that) and eaten raw. The taste is delicate and asparagus-like, and my distant to-do list includes gathering enough to steam and dip into calamondin butter.
The tuber can also be used for sarsaparilla, of Wild West cowboy fame, though Indians drank it too. While researching "Healing Plants: Medicine of the Florida Seminole Indians," former FGCU anthropologist Susan Stans met a tribal elder who showed her how to turn the knobby auburn roots into a drink called kunte-cate. She directed Stans to gather about 20 pounds of roots. With the help of a small army of Seminole kids, she skinned, cut and mashed them. After some settling, straining and drying, she had chalky bricks of starch that could be ground into flour.
In traditional Seminole cuisine, it was used to make a hearty drink, but given how time-consuming the process is, no one does it much anymore. Stans didn't mention the nasty challenge of gathering the stuff, but I bet that figured into its fall from grace too.
Though there are, apparently, a few varieties that lack claws, I've managed to avoid those. All the smilax I've ever tangled with have been savagely thorny, with spines ranging from stinging needles to tawny stilettos. The problem is, they like wild as much as I do, so we end up meeting regularly. Most recently, it was when Nash and I went on a Sunday afternoon expedition. We'd carefully donned the required jeans and footwear and plunged into the brush. Even protected, after about a mile, we both had our share of gashes because I'd forgotten to mandate long sleeves.
Then we spotted the tree — one of the biggest live oaks I've ever seen, a gnarled behemoth with limbs so heavy with age they drooped almost to the ground. What was there to do but climb it? Especially since it offered an up-in-the-air respite from the viny gauntlet we'd just run. Mama went first, to make sure there were enough sound branches. About 10 feet up, I paused at an intersection and told Nash he could come on up (he snapped a picture first, chuckling at the sight of his nutty mom in a tree).
Then, as I reached to pull myself higher, I groped for a holdfast and plunged my hand right into a beehive. No, a nest of yellow jackets. No, a smilax thicket, right in the juncture of two giant limbs — courtesy, I'm sure, of the blue jays and catbirds I think I heard snickering behind their wings.