Startling white menace
Weedy creeper Fragrant Thunbergia Thunbergia fragrans has been identified by the Brisbane City Council Weed Identification Tool as a potentially significant environmental weed in Queensland. It is a close relative of Black-eyed Susan Thunbergia alata also a weed in Enoggera catchment. Fragrant Thunbergia is a vine which creeps over other plants smothering them particularly in the Wet Tropics and coastal areas of South-East Queensland. Native to India, Sri Lanka and China, its common names include angelwings, sweet clock vine, white clock vine, white lady, white thunbergia, white gem thunbergia and white black-eyed susan. It is considered a weed in tropical and sub-tropical regions including the Caribbean, Florida and several Pacific Islands.
Perennial creeper can reach lengths of 2 to 3 metres, forming dense tangles over vegetation. Slender, four-sided stems are covered with fine, sparse hairs which become slightly woody with age. Simple opposite leaves are highly variable in shape including ovate, triangular, or lance-shaped. They measure roughly 4 to 14 cm long and 1.5 to 7 cm wide. The flowers are pure white up to 5 cm across, solitary or occasionally in pairs, emerging from the leaf axils on stalks 1.5 to 5 cm long. Flowers have five broad, obovate petal lobes and a tube that narrows toward the base. Despite the botanical name fragrans, some variations are scentless. The flowers sit on two prominent, leafy, ovate bracts that are 1.5 to 2.5 cm long. The fruit is a distinctive, woody, somewhat spherical capsule about 1 to 2 cm in diameter topped with a prominent, thick beak that splits open explosively at maturity to eject a few globose, brown seeds.
It easily climbs over native shrubs and trees, has large tuberous roots that degrade creek and river banks, spreads via seeds and easily regenerates from stem or root fragments. This makes it highly prone to spreading into native remnant vegetation when dumped with garden waste. Because of its extensive underground tubers, the plant is difficult to eradicate and requires targeted chemical or physical control to prevent it from resprouting. Treat with glysphosate using cut stump method or foliate spray. Place any green waste in general red-top or green-top bin.
Fragrant Thunbergia Thunbergia fragrans photographed at Walton Bridge Reserve near the footbridge over Fish Creek, June 2026. The flowers sit on two prominent, leafy, ovate bracts that are 1.5 to 2.5 cm long. Leaf shape is variable. Photo: Anne Jones
Thunbergia fragrana a weed in Tonga. Photo: Tauʻolunga CC BY-SA 3.0
