Thyrsanthella difformis (Walter) Pichon

Climbing Dogbane; American Star Jasmine

Vine

Perennial

Vascular

Climbing Dogbane is a native, perennial, woody vine in the Dogbane family (Apocynaceae). It can be found throughout Alabama. Climbing Dogbane occurs along steams and rivers, around pond edges, in swamps, and in alluvial forests. The woody vines climb trees and other vegetation by twining. The vines are typically 10-20 feet in length, but may grow as long as 60 feet. Young stems are green or reddish in color and glabrous. Older stems have thin, reddish-brown bark. Leaves are opposite, petiolate to subsessile, linear to lanceolate, elliptic, or ovate in outline, dark green and glabrous above, pale green and pubescent below, with entire margins. Leaves are deciduous and often extremely variable, even on the same plant. Both the stems and leaves exude a milky sap when damaged. Flowers are produced in axillary corymbs. Each flower had a green calyx with 5 linear lobes, and a funnelform corolla with 5 lobes. The corolla is yellow or greenish-yellow in color with orange stripes within. The fruit is a long, slender follicle. This species has long been known as Trachelospermum difforme (Walter) A. Gray, but molecular work has shown that it is not closely related to other species in that genus.—A. Diamond

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Native FACW (NWPL)

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