Species

Chamaecytisus palmensis

Common Name(s)

tree lucerne

Family

Fabaceae

Flora Category

Vascular - Exotic

NVS Species Code

CHAPAL

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.

Structural Class

Dicotyledonous Trees & Shrubs

Habitat

Terrestrial. Dry places, river beds, coastal sites, hillsides.

Features

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.

Flowering

May, June, July, August, September, October

Flower Colours

White

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.

This page last updated on 30 Jul 2014