What I really missed was a memory, an old memory of people long since gone, of my grandparents’ house bursting with cousins, smilax and holly.

Leaves, tall grass, ivy and prickly smilax cover the ground but can be pushed back to reveal brick surrounds marking family plots.

In the common catbrier or smilax we see two slender thread-like tendrils growing from the base of each leaf.

On a wire fence, a Smilax vine dangled menacingly pointed leaves, like a necklace of shark’s teeth.

The black bryony, or Tamus, is called black bindweed, and the Smilax aspera, rough bindweed.

Smilax covered the walls, save hero and there where the American flag was draped in graceful folds.