speargrasses

Lara Shepherd (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa); Leon Perrie (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa). Aciphylla is a genus of plants in the carrot family with a huge diversity of forms, ranging from tiny, soft-leaved herbs, to large spiky mounds a few metres across with huge, pointed clusters of flowers. Aciphylla comprises ~42 species, two of […]

Leon Perrie (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa); Lara Shepherd (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa). The 40 species of Aciphylla endemic to New Zealand make it one of the country’s biggest indigenous genera.  In the Apiaceae, the colloquial name of speargrasses reflects that the leaflets of most species have sharp, stiff, skin-piercing apices with the