Flora of New Zealand Series

Port St John creeper

Vigorous, evergreen, glabrous liane. Leaflets (5)-7-9, 2-7 × 1-3 cm (larger on strong vegetative shoots), usually lanceolate-ovate, sometimes ovate to broadly oblong-elliptic, serrate, becoming serrulate towards infl.; base cuneate, rounded, truncate, often asymmetric; apex short- to long-acuminate; petiolule to 1 cm long. Panicle many-flowered; peduncles and pedicels purplish. Calyx 1.2-1.8-(2) cm long, pinkish; teeth 4-7 mm long, triangular; apiculus c. 1 mm long. Corolla 6-8 cm long, pink with rose-red veins, especially inside tube; limb broader than high; lobes 1.2-2 cm long, suborbicular. Filaments with numerous short-stalked yellow glands at base. Style < to slightly > longer stamen pair, 2-3 cm long. Capsule rarely formed, 16-26 cm × 5-10 mm; valves coriaceous. Seed wings nearly 1 cm wide.

N.: N. Auckland (vicinity of Whangarei and Bay of Islands, Cavalli Is), also recorded in Auckland City (Hillsborough) and Bay of Plenty (Opotiki).

Pondoland in South Africa 1981

Waste places and abandoned gardens, scrambling over other vegetation.

FL Dec-May.

Port St John creeper is very commonly cultivated in warmer parts of N.Z. where it grows rampantly. In marginal areas where some frost occurs the vines are deciduous. Where it has escaped it reproduces by layering and the dense masses of foliage and branches tend to smother surrounding vegetation. The generic name is an anagram of Pandorea, to which it is closely related, but from which it can always be distinguished by the inflated calyx with its much larger teeth.