Help me figure out what plant this is? Potato-like tubers >>

jta016 · Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:55 pm

Hi, me and my dad were working outside and found these guys. Their size varies greatly and their leaves are greasy texture their stem seems like a vine of some sorts. No odor and isnt brittle enough to rip parts of it off. Any ideas of what it is is greatly appriciated.

jal_ut · Sat Oct 08, 2016 7:28 pm

I am going to call it a weed. Jerk it out and toss it in the garbage can!

applestar · Sat Oct 08, 2016 7:47 pm

Where are you located? This is very intriguing!

If North American origin, maybe one of the members !potatoes! would know ...

jta016 · Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:53 pm

Yes I am in texas. I was thinking a sort of potato!

!potatoes! · Sun Oct 09, 2016 7:32 pm

I think it's probably some species of Smilax. some have weird-shaped tubers like that. are the leaves real shiny on top?

told2b · Mon Oct 10, 2016 12:46 am

You don’t want Smilax in your yard.

applestar · Mon Oct 10, 2016 6:47 am

Smilax/greenbriar that invade my garden from the wooded lot behind the back fence has wicked thorns. They use the thorns to hook on/cling and climb up the undergrowth shrubs, reach up to low hanging tree branches and then climb on up to overhead branches

Some of them are impossible -- and dangerous -- to deal with since there are no safe portion of the thorny vines to grab hold of, and -- more than once -- I've attempted to cut them then yank them down and got hit by the falling/whipping thorny vine. (It always made me think these would be good material for medieval torture

)

But now I'm intrigued -- next time there's one in an area that I can dig up, I'm going to see if there is a tuber. Apparently, they grow berries that birds like to eat, so there are occasional volunteers that grow under their favorite roosting trees and areas in the garden.

Young greenbriar shoots are supposed to be tasty wild forage. When I tried to gather some, they have always been swarming with ants -- I think they must be sweet?

!potatoes! · Tue Oct 11, 2016 5:08 am

they're not particularly sweet, but they are very attractive to aphids. I'm a pretty big fan of the shoots - enough so that I keep cutting back some bigger old plants in the near edge of the woods to pick shoots from in the spring.

some species of smilax don't have that many thorns.