Family: Rosaceae

Origin: South America from southern tip north to Colombia

Frequently grown as a rockery plant.

Flowers freely and produces abundant fruit and seed. Fast growing.

Acaena ovalifolia and other closely related Acaena species have become naturalised in the wild, especially in forestry plantations and woodland, to the extent that it is now a nuisance. It is illegal to plant any Acaena in the wild in Northern Ireland.

The spiny fruits are produced in globular heads which readily break up so that the individual fruits stick on to animal fur or clothing and can be spread to new sites.