Family: Asteraceae (daisies)

Description:
Cape ivy is a non-woody vine with thin but slightly fleshy, glossy leaves with angular lobes. The flowers are yellow and daisy-like, but lacking conspicuous petals, sweet-scented, and are produced in winter or early spring. Seed is small, with a "parachute" of fine hairs to assist its dispersal.

Preferred habitat and impacts:
On forest edges, around towns or old farms, often along rivers and roadsides.
The plant climbs into the lower branches of trees, smothers smaller plants such as shrubs, and can carpet the ground so thoroughly as to exclude all other plants.

Dispersal:
It can reproduce vegetatively, from stem segments dumped or transported by floods. Also from wind-blown seed.

Look-alikes:
Many native Senecio species have similar yellow flowers, but all are herbs or small shrubs, not climbers.
Two species of weedy climbing groundsel occur in the region. Senecio tamoides is very similar to cape ivy, with smaller, slightly thicker angular leaves and much showier sweetly scented yellow flowers with long petals. Senecio angulatus is a more robust plant with stiff scrambling stems and smaller, much thicker, fleshier leaves and yellow petalled flowers.

Control:
Hand-pull young plants, or cut through stems and leave upper parts to die off in place. Spray regrowth, adding a surfactant to improve penetration of the waxy leaves.
When removing any species of vines, be careful about pulling them down, as this can damage the supporting plant. Generally they are better left to die off and break up in place, unless this would involve leaving a lot of seed in the canopy. Try to control vines before seed has formed to avoid this problem.