Family: Asteraceae (daisies)

Status:

Description:
May be a shrub with long canes which will climb, or if a suitable support is available, it becomes a conventional climber, twining around its supports. Its leaves are glossy, thick and fleshy, and bluntly lobed. Flowers are daisy-like with yellow petals. Seed is dandelion-like.

Preferred habitat and impacts:
Found around towns or old farms. Tolerates drought, and salinity.
It can be very invasive in the understorey of open forest, as a shrub, or climb into trees and shrubs. Likely to smother shrubs or smaller trees.

Dispersal
It can reproduce vegetatively, from stem segments dumped or transported by floods, as well as rooting from the branch tips around the edges of the infestation. Also from wind-blown seed.

Look-alikes
Many native Senecio species have similar yellow flowers, but all are herbs or small shrubs, not climbers. Cape ivy (Delairea odorata) and another climbing groundsel (Senecio tamoides) are similar, but both are weak-stemmed climbers, not shrubs, and have thinner textured leaves, which are sharply, not bluntly, angular.

Control
Selective herbicides are most effective. Young plants can be hand-pulled or dug.
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.