Botany Curator Leon Perrie and Science Researcher Lara Shepherd are working with David Glenny from the Bioeconomy Science Institute to investigate the relationships among Aciphylla, also known as taramea, speargrasses, or Spaniards. Here they introduce a newly described species.
It’s relatively easy to suspect something might be a different species, but it takes more work to assemble the evidence to demonstrate distinctness. A 2024 report published by the Department of Conservation on the vascular plants of Aotearoa New Zealand listed 323 entities, roughly 10% of the flora, as “taxonomically unresolved” – maybe they’re different, maybe they’re not. We’re hoping to work through the ten unresolved entities listed in Aciphylla, a genus of usually spiky-leaved plants in the carrot family.
The first case we have looked at has been long known as Aciphylla “Lomond” or similar, after the peak Ben Lomond near Queenstown. Botanical luminaries such as Alan Mark and Tony Druce thought in the 1980s that it might be a different species. We have now used genetic and morphological analyses to show that it is distinct and have newly named it as Aciphylla latipinna.
Our paper is freely available here.
How does it differ?
Aciphylla latipinna has sometimes been linked with A. horrida, but it is closest to A. aurea. The species name latipinna means broad leaflet, and it indeed has broader leaflets than A. aurea, as well as a broader rachis (the central axis of the leaf). Aciphylla latipinna also has shorter sheath leaflets at the base of the leaf; they’re often so short that they can be difficult to see! Aciphylla latipinna usually has at least some bluish leaves, as is often the case for A. aurea, but A. horrida leaves are green and never bluish.
Where does it occur?
Aciphylla latipinna is an upland species principally of western Otago but it extends to southern Canterbury and northern Southland. It overlaps extensively with A. aurea, and while A. latipinna generally occurs at higher elevations, hybridisation can be common, particularly in disturbed areas. Despite occurring together and some hybridisation, our genetic analyses show that A. aurea and A. latipinna comprise different evolutionary lineages, which is why we recognise them as separate species.
How Aciphylla latipinna interacts in the west of its distribution with A. horrida is less well known. Photos of large taramea from the mountains between Lake Wakatipu and Lake Wanaka are of interest to us. But please remember to get good photos showing the sheath leaflets! More generally, photos of any Aciphylla uploaded to iNaturalist are welcome help for our research, and all the more so from remote areas.
Other Te Papa blog posts about taramea
- An introduction to speargrasses – plants with a prickly reputation
- Speargrass collecting – a whirlwind tour of Te Waipounamu South Island
- Getting through speargrass defences: how to safely collect samples of a dangerous plant
- Carrots on ice: Speargrasses – New Zealand’s spiky survivors
Our published papers on Aciphylla
(1) Perrie LR, Glenny DS, Shepherd LD. 2025. Taxonomic synopsis of Aciphylla (Apiaceae): accepted species, nomenclature, and hybridisation. New Zealand Journal of Botany 63: 2776–2816.
(2) Shepherd LD, Perrie LR. 2026. Chloroplast phylogeography of taramea, speargrasses, Aciphylla (Aciphylleae, Apiaceae) in the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand indicates widespread glacial survival and introgression. Plant Systematics and Evolution 312: 17.
(3) Perrie LR, Glenny DS, Shepherd LD. 2026. Aciphylla latipinna, a new species of large taramea, speargrass (Aciphylleae, Apiaceae) from the southern South Island of New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 64: e70122.
The third paper is freely available here. For PDF files of the others, email us at lara.shepherd@tepapa.govt.nz or leon.perrie@tepapa.govt.nz
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