Tiwi Weeds - Shrubs

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Fringed Spider Flower (Cleome rutidosperma)

NT Declaration Status: No NT status, environmental weed.
Erect branched annual herb 50 cm tall, with angular stems.
Each leaf is made up of three diamond-shaped leaflets on 1.5–5 cm long stalks.
Small solitary mauve flowers with four upright petals up to 1.2 cm long. Flowers and fruits year-round, especially during the Wet Season.
Numerous tiny kidney-shaped brown seeds are found in a long narrow capsule 5–7 cm long. Seed pods "explode" when dry, launching seeds over short distances, with ants and water spreading them further.
Fringed Spider Flower grows rapidly and forms dense, thick mats that smother and stifle native plant species.

NT Declaration Status: Class A
Shrub or small tree up to 4 m high.
Multiple thick stems covered with coarse, sticky, brown hairs.
Leaves purple or green with 3–5 deep lobes.
Flowers are small, purple to red with yellow centres in clusters. Flowers most of the year but more during Wet Season.
Fruit capsules are smooth, oblong, initially green, ripening to dark brown.
Bellyache bush forms dense thickets and outcompetes native plants. It is highly toxic to animals and people.

Weed of National Significance – report to Tiwi Rangers immediately if found.
NT Declaration Status: Class B
Spreading shrub, 2-4 m tall often forming dense thickets.
Flower heads are about 2.5 cm wide and are made up of 20 to 40 small flowers of varying colours; they are yellow and pink on opening but change to orange and red as they age. Flowers all year round.
Leaves give off a bad smell when crushed.
Berries ripen from green to shiny purple-black and contain a single pale seed.
Lantana displaces native species and alters fire regimes. It is allelopathic - it releases chemicals into the soil which prevent germination and competition from some other plant species.

Weed of National Significance – report to Tiwi Rangers immediately if found.
NT Declaration Status: Class A
A spreading shrub with sharp prickles that forms dense, thorny, monospecific thickets up to 6 m tall.
Found on floodplains, wetlands and along creeks and rivers.
Leaves are fern-like and close up when touched and at nighttime.
Stems are greenish in young plants but become woody as the plant matures.
Flowers are round fluffy balls composed of up to 100 small pink to mauve flowers. Flowering is from July to February.
Seed pods are 6-8 cm long, turn brown when mature and break into segments. Seeds are oblong, brown or green and flattened and covered in fine hairs.
Mimosa displaces native animals and plants, prevents access to country, restricts harvesting of bush food, and harbours feral animals.

NT Declaration Status: Class B
Snakeweed is the term used to describe a number of different shrubs from the Stachytarpheta genus. They are clumping perennials up to 1.5m tall with tough, branched stems and woody roots.
Leaves are 10 cm long, oval-shaped, tapering at base to short stalk, in pairs along stem.
Flowers are a 5 mm-wide tube that opens into 5 petals. Colour can be white, dark blue, purple, pink or red. Flowering is all year round
Flowers are on stiff spikes 25 cm long that have 'snakeskin' appearance that develops as the flower dries out.
Fruit is oblong, 3–6 mm long, 1.5–2 mm wide. A single plant can produce over 7,000 seeds each year, which can germinate in as little as two weeks. Seeds are easily spread by water, vehicles, machinery, and on clothing.
Snakeweed forms dense, monospecific thickets that shade out and suppress native plants. It also produces chemicals that can inhibit the growth of surrounding plant species and prevent seed germination.

NT Declaration Status: Class B
Scrambling, perennial shrub, or vine up to 4 m tall. All parts of the plant are aromatic when crushed.
Leaves opposite, 6 – 12 cm long, 3 – 7 cm wide, hairy, triangular to broadly spear-shaped.
Flowers May to October. Flowers are white to pink or mauve, in dense clusters of floral heads.
Produces large quantities of seed, which are black to brown, linear, 4 – 5 mm long with a ‘parachute’ of pale bristles. Seeds are easily spread by humans, animals, machinery and water.
Siam Weed smothers and outcompetes native vegetation, increases the intensity and frequency of dry-season fires, and can cause skin problems and asthma in allergy-prone people.

TIWI LAND COUNCIL