Flora of New Zealand Series

Smilax

Summer-green scrambling or twining perennial; roots tuberous. Stems to 3 m long, tortuous, green, or slightly woody and brownish, branches spreading, angled, scabrid on angles. Scale-leaves scarious, entire, basal spur absent. Cladodes solitary at each node, 1-3.5 cm × 4-15 mm, flattened, broadly ovate-lanceolate, acute, with c. 7 prominent veins usually spreading horizontally. Flowers 1-2, axillary, 5-6 mm long, greenish-white, pedicels c. 5-8 mm long. Berry globose, 6-10 mm diam., red. Seeds 2-8, c. 2 mm diam., black.

N. North Auckland - Kerikeri, Dargaville; Auckland; Hawkes Bay - Napier; Wellington - Manawatu, sparingly naturalised. S. Nelson City; Canterbury - Christchurch and Banks Peninsula (rare and local). Roadside banks, hedges and waste land; also on coastal slopes and in abandoned quarries.

(S. Africa)

First record: Healy 1958: 534.

First collection: Dargaville, North Auckland, waste land in railway yards, A. J. Healy, 14.5.1950 ().

FL. 7-8.