Kunth
Description
Smilax wallichii is a woody, scrambling climber of the Smilacaceae, distributed through the eastern Himalaya. GBIF records are sparse (13 occurrences) and confined to Nepal, India and Bhutan, indicating a comparatively restricted, undercollected range. The species is a plant of subtropical to lower temperate broadleaved forest, where it climbs through trees and shrubs at forest margins, along streams and on ravine sides. The collection from the Tolung-Chu valley in Sikkim at 1,530 m in May exemplifies its occurrence in the humid, evergreen-forested foothill and lower montane belt of the region.
The plant develops from a stout, woody rhizome and produces tough, climbing stems that are often armed with scattered prickles. As in all Smilax, the leaves are alternate, simple, with a characteristic suite of curved-convergent main veins and a reticulate venation, the petiole bearing a pair of tendrils derived from stipular appendages that grip surrounding vegetation. The plants are dioecious; the small, greenish, six-tepalled flowers are borne in axillary umbels, the staminate flowers with six stamens and the pistillate flowers with a three-locular ovary. The fruit is a small, globose berry, ripening dark, containing few seeds.
Smilax is the principal genus of the otherwise small, exclusively climbing family Smilacaceae, distinguished within the monocots by its net-veined leaves, tendrillar petioles and dioecious umbels. Several species are sources of sarsaparilla and are used medicinally, and the rhizomes of Himalayan taxa enter local pharmacopoeias. The limited records of S. wallichii reflect both genuine rarity and under-sampling; as a forest-dependent liana, it is sensitive to the clearance and fragmentation of mid-elevation broadleaved forest.
Author: Kunth · Sources: POWO (Kew), Flora of China Vol. 24, Flora of Bhutan Vol. 3, GBIF, Koyama: Smilacaceae of the Himalaya and Eastern Asia