Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Comesperma volubile

Common name

Love creeper

Family

Polygalaceae

Where found

Forest, woodlandheath, and shrubland. Coast and mountainous areas.

Notes

Perennial twiner with stems to 3 m long. Stems angled, ridged, wiry, hairless or with short hairs along the ridges. Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.5–5 cm long, 1–9 mm wide, often reduced or falling off early, leaving the stems leafless, thin, lower surface paler, margins curved or rolled down. Flowers with 3 petals in the middle of the flower, the largest looking like the keel of a pea flower, and 2 coloured sepals that look like the wings of a pea flower. Flowers purplish blue, purplish pink, blue-mauve, pink or white. Keel pouched and darker than the other petals and the sepals, its tips yellow to cream. Wing sepals 4–7 mm long. Flowers in clusters 3-20 cm long. Flowering: July–December  Seed cases with a narrow wing.

All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Comesperma~volubile (accessed 7 January, 2021)