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A genus of perennial climbing plants, usually with a prickly woody stem; green brier, or cat brier. The rootstocks of certain species are the source of the medicine called sarsaparilla.

blue, the Syrian, bindweed. The black bryony, or Tamus, is called black bindweed, and the Smilax aspera, rough bindweed. The fragile bindweed bells and bryony rings. Tennyson.

with a slender woody stem bearing stout prickles; especially, species of Rosa, Rubus, and Smilax.

inally made of the twigs of the broom. Butcher's broom, a plant (Ruscus aculeatus) of the Smilax family, used by butchers for brooms to sweep their blocks; -- called also knee holly. See Cladophyll. -- Dyer's broom, a species of mignonette (Reseda luteola), used for dyeing yellow; dyer's weed; dyer's rocket. -- Spani…

A species of Smilax (S. Pseudo-China) growing from New Jersey to the Gulf of Mexico, which has very large tuberous and farinaceous rootstocks, formerly used by the Indians for a sort of bread, and by the negroes as an ingredient in making beer; -- called also bamboo brier and China brier.

ngle or double flowers; Indian pink. -- China root (Med.), the rootstock of a species of Smilax (S. China, from the East Indies; -- formerly much esteemed for the purposes that sarsaparilla is now used for. Also the galanga root (from Alpinia Gallanga and Alpinia officinarum). -- China rose. (Bot.) (a) A popular name…

ing a leaf, as in the apparent foliage of the broom (Ruscus) and of the common cultivated smilax (Myrsiphillum).

A glucoside resembling saponin, found in the root of sarsaparilla, smilax, etc., and extracted as a bitter white crystalline substance; -- called also smilacin, sarsaparilla saponin, and sarsaparillin.

The false china root, a plant of the genus Smilax (S. Pseudo- china), found in America.

Any plant of several tropical American species of Smilax.

a about the year 1850. -- Australian, or Botany Bay, tea (Bot.), a woody clambing plant (Smilax glycyphylla). -- Brazilian tea. (a) The dried leaves of Lantana pseodothea, used in Brazil as a substitute for tea. (b) The dried leaves of Stachytarpheta mutabilis, used for adulterating tea, and also, in Austria, for pre…