• Aggressive, rampant twining perennial climber from South America, which races to the canopy, curtaining all vegetation with its thick rope-like stems and dense foliage.
• Leaves are heart-shaped, hairless, shiny, thick and fleshy.
• Small tubular flowers, greenish-cream to white, droop in long fragrant sprays ('lamb's tails') through summer and autumn.
• Stems bear aerial tubers which form clusters high in the vine; tubers grow below ground on rhizomes (underground stems).

Grows from both kinds of tuber and from pieces of rhizome. Rarely produces seed. Often dumped on bushland edges. Both tubers and rhizomes can be washed down waterways.

Invades moist forest and rainforest edges, envelopes the canopy, restricts light, encourages disease, prevents germination of native plants. Weight can break down trees. Helps to destroy rainforest.

Lower Blue Mountains.

Five-leaf Water Vine (Cissus hypoglauca); 'Happy Wanderer' (Hardenbergia violacea); Wonga Wonga Vines (Pandorea species); Dusky Coral Pea (Kennedia rubicunda).

A long, difficult process. Spread tarps to catch tubers, pull down vine or knock down tubers. Bag them. Or scrape and paint stems without cutting.