Snake vine

Description

Hibbertia scandens, sometimes known by the common names snake vine, climbing guinea flower and golden guinea vine, is a species of flowering plant in the family Dilleniaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is climber or scrambler with lance-shaped or egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, and yellow flowers with more than thirty stamens arranged around between three and seven glabrous carpels. Hibbertia scandens is a climber or scrambler with stems 2–5 m (6 ft 7 in – 16 ft 5 in) long. The leaves are lance-shaped or egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, 30–80 mm (1.2–3.1 in) long and 15–25 mm (0.59–0.98 in) wide, sessile and often stem-clasping with the lower surface silky-hairy. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils, each flower on a peduncle 2–4 mm (0.079–0.157 in) long. The sepals are 15–25 mm (0.59–0.98 in) long and the petals are yellow, 20–30 mm (0.79–1.18 in) long with more than thirty stamens surrounding the three to seven glabrous carpels. Flowering occurs in most months and the fruit is an orange aril. Plants near the coast tend to be densely hairy with spatula-shaped leaves and have flowers with six or seven carpels, whilst those further inland are usually more or less glabrous with tapering leaves and flowers with three or four carpels. The flowers have been reported as having an unpleasant odour variously described as similar to mothballs or animal urine or sweet but with "a pronounced faecal element".