Chamaecytisus palmensis
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
tree lucerne
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Flower colours
White
Detailed description
Large shrub or small tree to about 5 m tall. Leaves three-foliate, each leaflet up to 40 mm long, finely downy when young but becoming glabrous at full size. White flowers produced in profusion in clusters of 3-8. Seed pod up to 60 mm long, tomentose but more or less glabrous when mature containing many shiny black seeds each about 5mm long.
Similar taxa
Several other Chamaecytisus species are cultivated in NZ. The most similar is C. proliferus but this species has villous leaf undersides. C. purpureus has pink flowers, and C. supinus has yellow flowers.
Habitat
Terrestrial. Dry places, river beds, coastal sites, hillsides.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Fabaceae
Synonyms
Chamaecytisus prolifer (L.f.) Link
Ecology
Flowering
May, June, July, August, September, October
Year naturalised
1919
Origin
La Plama, Canary Is
Reason for introduction
Agricultural
Life cycle and dispersal
Reproduces by seed, many thousands of tiny seeds are produced. Dispersed by water and moving gravel.
Other information
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
CHAPAL