Female flowers. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Male flowers. Photo: Richard Hartland, Point Cook, Vic

Male flowers. Photo: Richard Hartland, Point Cook, Vic

Shrub. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Common Name

Lignum, Tangled Lignum

Family

Polygonaceae

Notes

Shrub to 3m tall.  Branches and branchlets often ending in a spine.  Leaves with a sheath at the base, alternating up the stems, lost early, 1.5-7cm long, 2-10mm wide, flat, hairless, pointed.  Male and female flowers usually on different plants.  Flowers tiny (less than 3mm across), cream to pale green, with 5 'petals', solitary or in dense clusters along the stems.  Duma florulenta in New South Wales and SA.

Description and photo (as Muehlenbeckia cunninghamii) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 229

PlantNET description (as Duma florulenta):  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Duma~florulenta