Smilax zeylanica - Ceylon Smilax

Ceylon Smilax is a large climbing shrub with stems smooth, more or less 4-angled; armed with a few small distant prickles to almost unarmed. Leaves are spirally arranged, hairless, broadly ovate or almost round, 7-20 x 4-12 cm, tapering or cuspidate, base rounded, narrowly sheathing, 3-5 costate; leaf-stalk 1.2-2.5 cm; tendrils long and slender. Flowers are borne in solitary umbels in leaf axils. Flowers are stalked, umbles many-flowered; flower-cluster-stalks 1.3-2 cm; bracteate below the flower-cluster-stalks, flower-stalks of both male and female flowers arising from an aggregation of bracts. Male flower flower-stalks 3 mm; flowers 5-6 mm; stamens 6 mm. Female flower shorter than the male, tepals reflexed; flower-stalks 6-7 mm; stigma 3, recurved. Berries are red when ripe. Ceylon Smilax is found in deciduous forests in Western and Eastern Ghats, NE India, Myanmar. Flowering: April-September.