A scrambling shrub up to 1 m tall, or a climber with stems to about 3 m long, with rhizomatous roots, producing many slender stems. The stems are glabrous (with no hair), but mostly have spines and grow in a twining way.
The spines are straight or curved, 2–10 mm long, sharp and reddish brown. It has short, spreading branches with leaf-like cladodes (modified branchlets) in clusters of up to 12 along the branches. The true leaves are minute scales, whereas it is the cladodes that function as leaves. The cladodes are 6–15 mm long and only 0.5 mm wide and end in a sharp point. They are produced in clusters above each leaf scale.
The flowers are also produced in small clusters in the axils and each cluster contains several flowers, in spring and summer (Sept. –Feb.). Each flower is about 7–12 mm long, on stalks which are 5–10 mm long. They consist of 3 sepals and 3 petals, both of about 2.5–4.0 mm long. The sepals and petals are whitish in colour, extend outwards horizontally (spreading) and appear to be 6 petals, due to their similarity. Flowers have 6 stamens 2.0–3.5 mm long, usually with white filaments and yellow anthers.
After flowering, a rounded berry of about 5–6 mm diameter and containing a single seed, is produced. They are sometimes present throughout most of the year. Initially the berries are green and turn orange-red as they mature
Conservation Status
Asparagus africanushas been given a conservation status of Least Concern(LC) according to Red List of South African plants, checked on 01.12.2016.
Distribution and habitat
This species occurs in southern Africa, in Namibia, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa, where it is found from the Cape Peninsula, along the Eastern Cape coast to KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. It is also widely distributed in tropical Africa and occurs on the Arabian Peninsula, and in India. It is often found in moist places, and occurs in a variety of habitats, including rainforest, temperate forest, grassland, thicket, coastal scrub, forest margin and semi-desert, and in a number of vegetation types, including Fynbos and Strandveld.
Asparagus africanushas naturalized in parts of Australia and is an invasive weed in eastern Australia, ranked among the top ten most invasive plants in southeastern Queensland. It invades forests, rainforests, open woodland and riverside vegetation. It is also common in disturbed sites and waste areas, along roadsides in parks and gardens. The climbing twining growth habit of this species can completely smother smaller trees, understory shrubs and plants. The fibrous root system forms a dense mat just below the soil surface, which can interfere with the survival of seedlings.
