Flora of New Zealand Series

Smilax ripogonum Forst. f. Prodr.  1786,  70.

Supplejack, Kareao.

Type locality: "Noua Zeelandia." Type: There are Forster specimens at K, BM, and GOET.

Woody, evergreen liane of twining habit. Horizontal rhizome stout, often swollen into a woody tuber at base of erect stem. Stems of two kinds: (a) twining stems growing upward from mature rhizome on forest floor, without green lvs, succulent at tip; these are several m. long, c. 1.5–2 cm. diam., little branched, almost black, finely pubescent; nodes c. 10–20 cm. apart, thickened; sheathing scale leaves to several cm. long, alt. or opp., almost black, membr., brown-scabrid, caducous. (b) non-twining stems arising from the long stems in full light; these are to 1 m. long, c. 5 mm. diam., more branched and wide-spreading, light brown, glab.; internodes shorter, the distal ones bearing green lvs and infls. Green lvs mostly opp., 5.5–16 × 2–6 cm., ± coriac., narrow-ovate to oblong, narrowed rather abruptly to tip, margins entire and ± undulate; petiole c. 1 cm. long, ± channelled. Infl. axillary or terminal, simple or compound, to 15 cm. long; bracts us. all small and membr., but occ. some foliaceous. Pedicels c. 5–9 mm. long, without bracteole at base but with one or more adjacent to and resembling per.-segs. Fls not crowded. Tepals minute, free, spreading. Stamens much > tepals; filaments c. 2 mm. long; anthers greenish, linear-oblong, c. 3–5 × 1–1.5 mm., dehiscing laterally by long slits. Ovary globose, c. 1.5 mm. diam.; ovules 2 per locule, attached about mid-level; style 2 mm. long, including stigma of 3 verrucose lobes. Fr. globose, bright red, c. 1 cm. diam., the thin fleshy pericarp tightly stretched over 1–2–(3) hard, spotted seeds, seed when single almost spherical. Fr. falling, 12–15 months after fl., by abscission layer just above per. 2n = 30.

DIST.: N., S., St., Ch.

In lowland podocarp—broad-leaved forest.

FL. 12–1. FT. Present most of year.

Seedlings have thin stems and green lvs. Cockayne (Rep. bot. Surv. Waipoua Kauri For. 1908, 24) gives some notes on methods of climbing. B. H. Macmillan has supplied detailed information from a more recent study. The pattern of growth shares many of the features seen in Luzuriaga and this would lend support to an arrangement (e.g. Hooker, Fl. N.Z. 1, 1853, 253) in which these two genera appear side by side in one family.

The long tough pliable stems are still used for wicker work like osiers, a use commemorated in Forster's name for the genus.

Cheeseman (Ill. N.Z. Fl. 2, 1914, t. 200) quotes Solander's description: "Frutex ambulatoribus sylvarum molestissimus illisque ubique obstans".