Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Senecio tamoides

Flowering stems. Photographer Jackie Miles, Moruya Heads

Flowers and leaves. Photographer Jackie Miles

Common name

Canary creeper

Family

Asteraceae

Where found

Native bushland, moist gullies, and along streams. Coastal north of Bermagui.

Notes

Introduced scrambling or climbing perennial herb to 10 m high. Stems fleshy. Leaves more or less fleshy. Stems hairless, young stems often purplish. Leaves alternating up the stems, 4–7 cm long, 40-70 mm wide, hairless, margins lobed with 1–3 lobes per side, or coarsely toothed. Flower heads with 3–6 yellow 'petals' each about 10 mm long, and yellow centres with 10–15 florets. Flower heads cylindrical below the 'petals', about 3 mm in diameter, surrounded by 5–8 green appressed bracts. Flower heads in several- to many-flowered clusters. Flowering: winter.

Seeds easily dispersal by wind. Pieces of its fleshy stems often sprout from dumped garden waste.

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