Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Pueraria lobata

Common name

Kudzu

Family

Fabaceae

Where found

Moist forests, roadsides, disturbed sites, gardens, and along streams. Few records - Penrith, near Bargo, and Bega.

Notes

Introduced trailing or climbing perennial herb with a large edible tuber. Stems to 30m long, hairy. Leaves alternating up the stems, compound, with 3 leaflets, each 7-15 cm long, 50-130 mm wide, unlobed to 3-lobed, tips pointed, both surfaces sparsely appressed-hairy, upper surface green, lower surface greyish green. Flowers vanilla- or grape-scented. Flowers 12-18 mm long, pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel. Standard petal  purple, blue, or pink with a basal yellow spot, other petals reddish purple. Flowers in clusters of 4-90 flowers. Flowers Summer.

General Biosecurity Duty all NSW. General Biosecurity Duty with additional restrictions in the Greater Sydney area. 

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Pueraria~lobata  (accessed 2 February, 2021)