Bossiaea tasmanica
Bossiaea tasmanica is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to Tasmania. It is a prostrate or low-lying shrub with spiny branches, elliptic to egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, and yellow and red to pink flowers.
Description
Bossiaea tasmanica is a prostrate or low-lying shrub that typically grows to a height of about, its branches often ending in a spine. The leaves are elliptic to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole about long with stipules long at the base.The flowers are borne in leaf axils near the ends of branches, each flower up to long on a pedicel long. There are bracts are long at the base of the pedicel, and bracteoles long but that fall off as the flower opens. The five sepals are long and joined at the base forming a tube, the upper lobes are long and wide, and the lower lobes are narrower. The standard petal is yellow with a red base and up to about long, the wings purplish-brown and wide, and the keel yellowish-green, sometimes with a pinkish tinge, and about wide. Flowering occurs in November and December and the fruit is a more or less oblong pod about long.
This bossiaea is closely related to B. obcordata, but differs from it in being more prostrate, and in having branchlets that are more wax-encrusted with blunter spines, narrower leaves and hairy sepals and fruit.