Many native plants can appear to be very similar to exotic introduced weed species. While carrying out bushland regeneration or general weeding, many indigenous species can be wrongly identified as weeds and removed. This may be due to similarities in leaf shape, flower colour, growth habits or fruit types.
If in doubt, don’t pull it out!
On this page, images have colour coded borders to help illustrate which plants are friends, and which are foes: red indicates the weed species, green indicates the indigenous species.
Simply click on the weed species to reveal the common lookalike indigenous species. Some weed species have more than one lookalike.
Friend or Foe?
Acacia longifolia subsp. longifolia – Sallow Wattle
Spotting Characteristics:
- Habit: Bushy shrub to small tree to 10m tall.
- Leaves: Phyllodes alternate, long, narrow, and mid to dark green. 2 prominent longitude veins (to 20cm).
- Flowers: (July -Spring) clustered in cylindrical yellow spikes, usually paired in leaf axils (to 3.5cm)
- Fruit: More or less straight cylindrical pod to 15cm
Field Notes:
Leaves (phyllodes) often arranges fairly uniformly up the stem, thin and narrow. Flowers in rods not balls. Seed pods typically straighter.
Not to be confused with….
Acacia melanoxylon – Blackwood
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Small to large tree 6-30m tall.
Leaves: Phyllodes dull green- alternate, clustered near ends of branches, smooth, edges wavy, with 3-5 raised longitude veins. Thick and leathery (3-8cm).
Flowers: (July- Spring), clustered cream ball-shaped flowerheads arranged in short racemes.
Fruit: Dark brown pods becoming twisted with age (4-15cm)
Field Notes:
Leaves (phllyodes) looking messy as opposed to uniform, 3-5 veins. Flowers creamy clustered ball-shaped. Trunk dark brown and rough-barked.
Acacia longifolia subsp. longifolia – Sallow Wattle
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Bushy shrub to small tree to 10m tall.
Leaves: Phyllodes alternate, long, narrow, and mid to dark green. 2 prominent longitude veins (to 20cm).
Flowers: (July -Spring) clustered in cylindrical yellow spikes, usually paired in leaf axils (to 3.5cm)
Fruit: More or less straight cylindrical pod to 15cm
Field Notes:
Leaves (phyllodes) often arranges fairly uniformly up the stem, thin and narrow. Flowers in rods not balls. Seed pods typically straighter.
Not to be confused with….
Acacia longifolia subsp. sophorae- Costal Wattle
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Dense bushy shrub up to 10m tall.
Leaves: Phyllodes yellowish-green, linear to narrowly elliptical, 2 prominent longitude veins (3-12cm).
Flowers: (July -Spring) clustered in cylindrical yellow spikes, usually paired in leaf axils (to 3.5cm).
Fruit: Coiled or twisted pod to 15cm.
Field Notes:
Often mistaken for Sallow Wattle (subsp. Longifolia), while Coastal (subsp. sophorae) is primarily a coastal species it now can invade inland sites. Distribution of both is now unclear. Leaves (phyllodes) often shorter, wider, and thicker than Sallow Wattle and seedpods commonly coiled
Coprosma robusta- Karamu
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Dense shrub or small tree to 8m.
Leaves: Broad, ovate, leathery and hairless. Pointed at the apex and grows opposite. Finely toothed along the margins (to 8cm).
Flowers: (July -Spring) Unisexual, females flowers 2 long hairy style branches, males with 4 fine pendulous stamens. Pale yellow-green, tubular.
Fruit: Typically orange, fleshy globular.
Field Notes:
Leaves grow exactly opposite and are large. Can grow to a small tree whereas hirtella stays more as a shrub. Fruit ranges from yellow, orange to red.
Not to be confused with….
Coprosma hirtella- Rough Coprosma
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: A shrub 2m tall.
Leaves: Rough, thick, broad leaves with distinct point on the end. Ovate and grows opposite (to 4cm).
Flowers: (Spring-Summ) Unisexual, females flowers 2 long hairy style branches, males with 4 fine pendulous stamens. Pale yellow-green, tubular.
Fruit: Red, fleshly globular.
Field Notes:
Leaves dark, short, hairless and rough that taper sharply to a point. Fruit is orange-red. Found in wet, montane forest.
Disa bracteata – South African Weed Orchid
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Fleshy, green and brown orchid 30-50cm tall.
Leaves: Initially form clump at base then develop to green grass-like leaves that are purplish underneath (5-15cm).
Flowers: (Summer) Crowed spike of up to 60 tiny brown-green hooded flowers in a dense spike resembling a brownish asparagus spear. Each flower surrounded by a tapering modified leaf.
Field Notes:
Only non-native orchid in Victoria. Tuber needs to be dug out and fully removed. Distinguished from other similar Onion-orchids (Microtis spp.) and Leek-orchids (spp.) by its rosette of 6-10 narrow leaves often with a redish tinge to the underside.
Not to be confused with….
Microtis unifolia – Common Onion Orchid
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Slender, wholly yellow-green orchid to 90cm tall.
Leaves: Single, erect, fleshy, and hairless, up to 80cm long wrapped around stem.
Flowers: (Summer) Crowed spike of 10-100 tiny yellow-green hooded flowers. The flowerhead emerges through a slit in the leaf.
Field Notes:
A single leaf. Finer form, not chunky
Anthoxanthum odoratum – Sweet Vernal-grass
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Sparsely and loosely tufted, mid-green, perennial grass with erect flower stems to 80 cm tall.
Leaves: In loose basal tufts. Thin, flat, and finely hairy (10-25cm). Where the leaf sheath meets leaf blade there is a small membranous structure 1-5mm long.
Flowers: (Spring -Summ) Inflorescence a dense, cylindrical, spike-like panicle to 10cm. Densely covered with “hairs” that become bronze with age.
Field Notes:
Flowers messy, densely covered with “hairs” that become bronze with age. Contains ‘coumarins’ that smells a bit of aniseed, you can smell at the roots when pulled out.
Not to be confused with….
Deyeuxia quadriseta- Reed Bent-grass
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Erect non- tufted and sparsely leafed perennial grass with flower stems to 1.5 m tall.
Leaves: Rough, flat to slightly inrolled leaf (up to 30cm). Sheath pale and finely ribbed
Flowers: (early spring to late autumn) Flowerhead dense and fluffy, cylindrical, spike-like 6-15 cm long. Pale green to purple.
Field Notes:
Tall flower head with neat structure and no fluffiness to it. Flower heads often have separate clusters at base with one flower per stem. Hairless, and can be distinguished by longer glumes (G) than lemmas (L) in the spikelet
Erica lusitanica– Spanish Heath
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Evergreen, slender erect woody shrub up to 2m tall.
Leaves: Small prickly, stiff, narrow leaves that grow densely (to 7mm).
Flowers: (winter – early spring) White or pale pink, tubular that turn brown when aged. Anther protruding out. Grows in groups of 2-4 at end of branches (4-5mm).
Fruit: Small capsules 2-3mm long.
Field Notes:
Crowded needle-like leaves and short white tubular flowers that look clustered at end of branches.
Not to be confused with….
Epacris impressa- Common Heath
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Erect shrub to 1.2 m tall with small, prickly leaves and white, pink or red, tubular flowers in leaf axils
Leaves: Small prickly, flat, linear- lanceolate to elliptic that are alternate and well-spaced (to 15mm).
Flowers: (Mar-Nov) Variable colour- white, pink or red tubular with five triangular lobes Indentations at flower base, anthers level at flower opening. (4-20mm).
Fruit: Small capsule 2mm long.
Rubus fruticosus- Common Blackberry
Spotting Characteristics:
Habit: Dense sprawling shrub with arching thorny stems, to 2 m long
Leaves: Dark green leaflets oblanceolate or broadly elliptic, pale- grey and hairy underneath (to 8cm). Margins toothed; thorns narrow, curved to 8 mm long, hairless stems.
Flowers: (Late spring- summ) Pale pink, fading white in large clusters, 5 petals (to 20mm).
Fruit: Edible blackberry (check whether sprayed)
Field Notes:
Forms dense thickets with pronounced thorns, large dark leaves, and white clustered flowers.
Not to be confused with…
Rubus parvifolius – Small-leaf Bramble
Spotting Characteristics:
- Habit: Scrambling perennial prickly shrub to 1 m long.
- Leaves: Bright green wrinkled leaves, with a downy-white hairy underneath. 3-5 leaflets, the terminal leaflet usually the largest. Margins toothed and stems hairy.
- Flowers: Pink or red flowers, 5 petals (to 10mm).
- Fruit: Edible red raspberry-like fruit
Field Notes:
Scrambler, smaller ovate leaflets. Lighter colour and hairy stems. Has two sets of paired leaves that are well spaced as opposed to Blackberry that often has one set or two not spaced far apart.
