GreenbriarSmilax bona-nox
SnailseedCocculus carolinusI'm sorry, but I really despise these two vines. One has awful thorns, and the other spreads with a vengeance. I've been pulling
snailseed runners (I never knew it had a real name...duh!) for years. Now that we're working on the Meadow (our adjoining lot), we've started removing the
snailseed, greenbriar and Japanese honeysuckle. The
snailseed has an amazing underground network of runners that send up foliage every foot or so. It's kinda fun yanking them up and seeing how long of a vine you end up with.
However, I also wondered if we were doing the right thing to remove the
snailseed. So I e-mailed Mike Reagan, our regional biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, and here's what he offered: "You can pull up the
greenbriar and
snailseed vines if you want to, even though they are natives to this area. Both vines produce fruit that birds eat so they can work well in a
Wildscape. However, if you are trying to grow more colorful flowering plants, the vines might take up a lot of your garden space. You might want to consider just removing a good portion of the vines and leaving some in the garden."
That's the problem: the
snailseed in particular acts like a darn invasive plant! It goes EVERYWHERE. In its place, we've already planted coral honeysuckle and
pipevine (host plant for
pipevine swallowtails).
In the meantime, I Googled
snailseed and learned how it got its unusual name. Check out the photo of the
snailseed seed, compliments of the Image Archive of Central Texas Plants.
Snailseed wrapped around
greenbriar
According to Wildflowers, Trees, and Shrubs of Texas (Lone Star Field Guide series), snailseed's red, shiny fruit is not edible (for humans?) and the vine is used in landscaping (really???). Likewise, says the guide, greenbriar's blue-black berries are inedible. However, "berries and roots yield dyes for wool, new leaves are edible," the guide states.
Salad, anyone?
Snailseed and
greenbriar
