Family: Aizoaceae
Tetragonia tetragonioides
Citation:
Kuntze, Rev. Gen. Pl. 2:264 (1891).
Synonymy: Demidovia tetragonioides Pallas, Enum. Pl. Hort. Demidof Mosc. 150 (1781); T. expansa Murray, Comm. Goet. 6:13 (1783); T. inermis F. Muell., Linnaea 25:384 (1853).
Common name: New Zealand spinach, Warragul cabbage.
Description:
Robust annual or perennial prostrate or rarely erect herb, somewhat papillose and scaly; leaves thick, gradually petiolate, triangular-ovate or lanceolate, 2-8 cm long.
Flowers subsessile, greenish; stamens c. 8-16; styles and cells 5-11; free summit of ovary depressed-hemispherical.
Fruit green but becoming hard, very variable even on the same plant, subglobular to turbinate, 8-15 mm diam., sometimes merely 3-or 4-angled or the angles produced into 3-8 spreading to incurved hard equal or unequal horns.
|
|
Image source: fig. 120 in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
|
Published illustration:
Cochrane et al. (1968) Flowers and plants of Victoria, fig. 280.
Distribution:
|
All mainland States. New Zealand.
|
Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: throughout the year.
|
SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
|
Biology:
The typical New Zealand form is perennial, with long prostrate rooting branches. The arid Australian form appears to be annual, with short prostrate branches radiating from a tap root. The New Zealand form is grown widely, sometimes eaten as a vegetable, and naturalised in Europe and Africa.
Author:
Not yet available
|