Bossiaea carinalis


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

Description

Bossiaea carinalis is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has hairy branchlets. The leaves are arranged alternately, narrow egg-shaped to lance-shaped, mostly long and wide on a petiole long with narrow triangular stipules long at the base. The flowers are borne 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 two upper lobes long and the lower lobes long. The standard petal is red with a yellow base and up to long, the wings yellow or red and slightly longer than the standard, and the keel pink to red and longer than the standard petal. Flowering occurs in most months but mainly from late winter to early spring and the fruit is an oblong pod long.

Taxonomy

Bossiaea carinalis was first formally described in 1864 by George Bentham in Thomas Mitchell's Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia.

Distribution and habitat

This bossiaea grows in woodland and forest between Bundaberg and Townsville in eastern Queensland.

Conservation status

Bossiaea carinalis is listed as of "least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.