Flora of New Zealand Series

Cape Tulip

Fig. 25I

Corm 1-2.5 cm diam., tunic fibrous, thick, dull dark brown, latticed. Stem < leaf, stiff, zigzag. Leaf single, strap-like, concavo-convex, arching over to trailing, 30-60- (90) cm long, ribbed, tough, adaxial surface bluish-green, abaxial surface shining green. Flowers ± 4 cm long, ± 5 cm diam., 2-4 in clusters enclosed in terminal membranous spathe-valves; lobes yellow-orange, orange-scarlet to salmon-pink, yellow at base. Capsule 4-5 cm × 5 mm, narrow-cylindrical, ± angled. Seeds many, c. 3 mm long, triangular, light brown.

First record: Healy 1944: 229.

First collection: Hamilton Bay, French Pass, pasture on hill slopes, H. C. Hope, 15.9.1943 (CHR 35493).

Formerly widely cultivated and naturalised in pastures in some places, now declared a noxious weed. FL. 9-11. (S. Africa)

Also treated in N.Z. as H. breyniana (L.) G. J. Lewis. In J. S. African Bot. 7. 1941, 59, Lewis treated H. collina as a synonym of H. breyniana but Goldblatt (J. S. African Bot. 39, 1973, 137) considered it was not possible to determine to which sp. of Homeria the epithet "breyniana" would apply and reverted to the name H. collina.

Distinguished by the long, solitary, tough leaf. A poisonous plant, responsible in N.Z. and elsewhere for deaths in sheep, cattle and man. All parts of the plant are toxic.

H. collina was probably introduced from Australia, and apparently widely planted as an ornamental. By the 1940s it was a well-established garden escape, and despite all attempts at control Cape tulip persists in hill country grassland at Woolleys Bay north of Whangarei, on Portland Island near Mahia Peninsula, and at Hamilton Bay near French Pass, Marlborough. It is a scheduled weed under the Noxious Weeds Act 1950, and much government finance has been devoted since the 1940s to afforestation and spraying in the three areas of major infestation. Small patches have also been found in pasture and grassy waste land in scattered localities. Cape tulip still appears in at times in gardens, notwithstanding a vigorous eradication campaign in the 1950s and 1960s.

Reproduction is both by corms (varying in size from a rice grain to ± 2.5 cm diam.) and seeds (3000 - 6000 per plant). Corms may occur to a depth of 30 cm and are long persistent in a dormant viable state in the soil. Counts showed 6-10 million corms per acre (up to 200 per cubic foot), and up to 3000 seeds per square foot on the soil surface with more in the upper soil layers, see Glue (N.Z.J. Agric. 96, 1958, 433-8). Mature stems, brittle when dry, snap off and are blown by the wind, sheddng seed from the capsules. Both corms and seeds are also dispersed by run-off water and in mud on animals, implements and vehicles.

Since tree planting in 1945, periodic checks showed viable corms in soil under trees, and in the afforested infested land at Hamilton Bay H. collina has reappeared after logging where the soil has been much disturbed by heavy equipment in wet weather. Inspection of roadsides between French Pass and Nelson, of log stock-pile sites at Port Nelson, and of some sawmills is necessary, while logging continues.