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Native Plants
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The Monday Garden
September 28, 2003, issue no. 79
Great Americans: Autumn Vines
by Sue Sweeney
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Autumn officially came this past week. Here's a catbrier turning red on a
fence in Stamford's Scalzi Park to prove it. |
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Catbrier |
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Climbing Boneset (Canada Moonseed) |
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When we think of native perennial vines that look great in autumn, native
bittersweet (endangered) and woodbine (ubiquitous) tend to come to mind first.
And then there's the mixed blessing of poison ivy (see issue 74). But there
are several other wonderful native vines that look great in fall, including
catbrier, and climbing boneset, and groundnut.
Catbriers, also known as greenbriers, are
members of lily family. The most common of the North American species is the
round-leafed Smilax rotundifolia, pictured above. Southern and
Asian cousins include the sarsaparillas (or zarzaparrillas), well-known
medicinal herbs. Catbriers have spines, small green flowers in spring, curling
tendrils for climbing, and woody stems. The glossy leaves are semi-evergreen.
Humans tend to consider catbriers a nuisance but the young shoots, leaves and
tendrils are edible (prepare like asparagus). Birds find the black berries
delicious and like the dense catbrier thickets for nesting. White tailed deer
are reported to enjoy the leaves.
Climbing boneset, also known as climbing
hempweed [and Canada Moonseed] (miikania scandens), is a vine in the
sunflower/aster/daisy family, is a relative of the famous and fabulous
Joe Pye
Weed (issue 22) and (non-climbing) boneset. Like catbrier, it can get out of
hand when happy and it stands up to the invasive foreign competition such as
Indian bittersweet (issue 40),
English ivy (issue 46),
rosa multiflora
(issue 44), and
porcelain vine (issue 31), for example.
It's found throughout North America in sunny, damp places; I find it climbing
over the railing along Stamford's Mill River walk, usually covered with
pollen-loving insects.
Ground nut (apois americana) (pea or
legume family), a relative of the peanut from the eastern half of North America,
was extensively used by Native Americans for food. The cooked tubers are
reported to be high is starch and protein; the pea-type seedpods are also
edible. It's a good example of why we need to save all the weeds. For the past
200 or 300 years, it has been considered a bit of a nuisance and has been
overlooked as a food crop. However, it's now being re-investigated because it's
easy to grow and yields both roots and seed pods of high food value. The
flowers are pretty too. In today's web entry there's a picture of it for
dominance on a guardrail along Stamford's Mill River. Its other names include
potato bean and Indian potato. Further reading at "Plants for a Future"
www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/groundnt.html |
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