Bossiaea brownii

Bossiaea brownii is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to eastern Queensland. It is an erect shrub with egg-shaped leaves and yellow flowers with red markings.

Description

Bossiaea brownii is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has hairy branchlets. The leaves are egg-shaped, mostly long and wide on a petiole long with narrow triangular stipules long at the base. The flowers are usually borne on short side branches, each flower on a pedicel long with a bract long and similarly-sized bracteoles at the base. The sepals are long and joined at the base with the upper lobes long and the lower lobes slightly shorter. The standard petal is yellow with a red base and about long, the wings purplish and long, and the keel pink grading to dark red and slightly longer than the standard petal. Flowering occurs in most months and the fruit is an oblong to elliptic pod long.

Taxonomy

Bossiaea brownii was first formally described in 1864 by George Bentham in Flora Australiensis, including from specimens collected by Robert Brown at Port Bowen.

Distribution and habitat

This bossiaea grows in woodland and forest, often in gorges and is found south from Shoalwater Bay and as far inland as Springsure in eastern Queensland.