Family: Phytolaccaceae

Status:

Description:
An erect branching perennial herb, usually about 1m high with a similar spread, which may be sprawling and open in shade or more compact, dense and erect in full sun. Stems are smooth and green or reddish. Leaves are large (5-16cm) and oval with a pointed tip, and smell unpleasant when crushed. Flowers are small and white in tight narrow clusters. The purple-black fleshy fruits are about 5mm in diameter and also in narrow clusters. There is a large woody white taproot.

Preferred habitat and impacts:
Generally appears after disturbance, such as clearing or fire. Clumps often come up around windrows of felled timber. The plant is poisonous. The rampant growth will suppress any other plants growing beneath it.

Dispersal:
Seed is spread by birds and foxes.

Look-alikes
An uncommon native plant Deeringia amaranthoides has similar leaves and fruits. It is a sprawling shrub which may also climb into other plants to some extent. Leaves have a more drawn-out pointed tip than those of inkweed. The small red flowers are in longer, more open spikes, and are followed by red berries, also in a more open spike. Deeringia often grows around the edges of fig-dominated dry rainforest.

Control
Small infestations can be chipped out but you need to dig quite deeply to remove the growing crown at the top of the root. Hand pulling is ineffective even on very small seedlings, as the plant invariably snaps off and leaves the root behind to re-grow. Herbicide should be effective.