Asparagus asparagoides
species of plant
Asparagus asparagoides, commonly known as bridal creeper, bridal-veil creeper, gnarboola, smilax or smilax asparagus, is a herbaceous climbing plant of the family Asparagaceae native to eastern and southern Africa. Sometimes grown as an ornamental plant, it has become a serious environmental weed in Australia and New Zealand.
Taxonomy
Linnaeus first described this species as Medeola asparagoides in 1753. It has been reclassified in the genus Asparagus by W. Wight in 1909, or Myrsiphyllum by Carl Ludwig von Willdenow in 1808.
Description
Asparagus asparagoides grows as a herbaceous vine with a scrambling or climbing habit which can reach 3 m (10 ft) in length. It has shiny green leaf-like structures (cladodes) which are flattened stems rather than true leaves. They measure up to 4 cm long by 2 cm wide. The pendent white flowers appear over winter and spring, from July to September. It is rhizomatous, and bears tubers which reach 6 cm (2.4 in) by 2 cm (1.8 in) in size.
Related species and diagnostic characters
Within southern Africa, it is frequently confused with the closely related species Asparagus ovatus and Asparagus multituberosus.
“Asparagus asparagoides” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Asparagus, asparagoides and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Asparagus asparagoides” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Asparagus, asparagoides and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4807698. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1753, 1909 and 1808.
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This entry incorporates text from “Asparagus asparagoides” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.