Twiggy Bush-pea

Appearance

An erect shrub often 1 m or more high, with rigid branches, silky-pubescent; leaves often arranged in three's, petiolate, obovate to narrow-cuneate, obtuse, 4-10 x 1.6-4 mm, concave or folded, with a recurved tip or occasionally notched, glabrous above, below with appressed hairs and a distinct midrib; stipules triangular, acute, 0.5-1 mm, leathery, dark-brown, with scarious margins.

Flowers 6-8 mm long, sessile or on usually less than 1.5 mm long pedicels pubescent with white appressed antrorse hairs, 2 or 3, axillary, if terminal the axis not growing out into a leafy shoot, when young surrounded by imbricate bracts; bracts 2-4 mm long, oblong, ovate or almost orbicular, usually notched, the inner most often acuminate or 3lobed, brown, leathery, glabrous or with few hairs; bracteoles near the summit of the calyx tube or lower, lanceolate, c. 3 mm long, brown, leathery, with hairs towards the margins and on the central portion; calyx densely silky-pubescent, 5-6 mm long; the upper 2 lobes broader, united higher up and strongly curved; the lower narrowly acuminate, longer than the tube; standard and wings bright-yellow, keel crimson; ovary villous.

Pod scarcely exceeding the calyx, ovate, c. 4 mm long, brown with white antrorse hairs; seed reniform, c. 2 mm long, dark-brown.

Distribution

Southern Australia