Yam bam thank you ma'am

The almost double helix of a black bryony vine is a eye-catching ornament in the hedgerow at summer's end.
The plant has acquired a variety of names: Adder's Meat, Adder's Poison, Bead Bind, Bindweed, Broyant, Elphamy, Isle of Wight Vine, Lady's Seal, Mandrake, Murrain Berries, Oxberry, Poison Berry, Roberry, Rowberry, Rueberry, Rollberry, Serpent's Meat, Snakeberry, Snake's Food, Wild Vine.

As a small child I had my own name for the berries. They are poisonous but are safely consumed by birds. Since in my infantile jargon gó meant bird and né-né meant food I called them gó-né which was completely logical in a proto-Chomskyan fashion.
(I can clearly remember my father alarming me by pretending to eat them: parental guidance which would achieve a Mumsnet approval score of nil.)

The scientific name of the plant is Tamus communis and it's our only indigenous member of the yam family, possessing an underground tuber that can resemble a mis-shapen human form.
Hence it was sometimes used as a substitute for the less-easily acquired, non-native mandrake/mandragora root that was said to utter a death-dealing shriek when torn out of the ground. (The task was therefore delegated to dogs.)

According to this, black briony was in fact known as womandrake, the feminine version of the magic mandrake.

All of which provides an explanation of my title as tortuous as the sinister vine itself.