PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Smilax / Saw Greenbrier (var. bona-nox)
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Pictured: Smilax bona-nox — the species. This variety isn’t separately illustrated.
Smilacaceae family

Saw Greenbrier (var. bona-nox) Smilax bona-nox var. bona-nox variety

Native

Saw Greenbrier (var. bona-nox) is a plant native to the lower 48 states.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 7 derived from its U.S. range
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~19 caterpillar species

Smilax supports ~19 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Smilax in North America, including:

Acrolepiopsis incertella · ermine moth Callopistria floridensis · Florida Fern Moth Cymatophora approximaria · Giant Gray Moth Ditula angustiorana · Red-Barred Tortrix Ephestiodes infimella · snout moth Lymantria dispar · Gypsy Moth
+ 8 more species →
Marmara smilacisella · leaf-blotch miner moth Oiketicus abbotii · Abbot's Bagworm Moth Papaipema unimoda · Meadow-Rue Borer Peridroma saucia · Pearly Underwing Phosphila miselioides · Spotted Phosphila Phosphila turbulenta · Turbulent Phosphila Phyprosopus callitrichoides · Curve-Lined Owlet Proleucoptera smilaciella
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (10) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[07] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[08] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[09] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…