Smooth Carrion

I had never noticed this plant until a few days ago when I discovered it in full bloom. It was growing along a fence line in a damp wood...Read Mores at the eastern base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. The flowers were stunning and spectacular. However, the odor was equally stunning in a negative way. It was strong even 30 feet away from the plant and it smelled like a rotting deer carcass. I don't think that particular plant will have any problem attracting flies to pollenate it! Still, I wouldn't rule it out for a garden.

Have found this plant growing on the north side of a lightly treed (Chokecherry, Hawthorn, Oak) field edge. It was clambering up a chokec...Read Moreherry. Have collected seeds today, almost like a cluster of blueberries! Will sow some in unheated greenhouse and some indoors. Not sure about collecting seed when the flowers have faded the fruits seem very small and hard at that time?
I'm in Manitoba where we get down to minus 35-40C, Zone 2b-3.
Thanks for the very informative site.

Can't say enough good about this plant. Grows natively along the roadside of our farm in full, blazing sun in heavy competition with thic...Read Morek grasses and other plants. Exotic and downright alien in appearance when it is just starting to attain some height in the spring. We fell in love with this plant so much that when creating the logo for our farm we incorporated one of the stalks into the design. Amazingly well behaved given its other notorious family members and no thorns. Am attempting to cultivate from seed this year. Will post more as the experiment progresses. If you can, get one of these!

We often see this vine on our woods walks around here. Evidently, it's fine in dappled shade, and must not be too tasty to deer, or it w...Read Moreouldn't grow wild.

It's peculiarities are why I think it's so wonderful. The flowers stink something terrible, but not if you don't bury your nose in them - the wonder of that stink is awesome reason alone for growing it.

But I think it's quite beautiful. The first time I ever saw it, we were walking along a river in the spring, and along the bank, it was rising up like a cobra and it had a flower back-lit by dappled light that seemed to glow from within. The flower is kinda like an onion flower with zillions of florets inside, and the whole effect in that kind of light is a luminous chartreuse.

It's also known as the Cobra Vine, and it is nothing like its evil twin, Smilax rotundifolia. Smilax herbacea has no thorns and I have never seen it gobbling up space the way its evil twin does.

I think it would be pretty coming up through a bed of ferns, bloodroot, and spring beauty with maybe some Actaea racemosa (or A. simplex for later bloom) nearby. The shade loving Aster divaricata would mist the plants over in September, and Chelone (turtle head) would further expand the plant palette and make a host for the endangered Baltimore checkerspot butterfly.