Gompholobium polyzygum


Gompholobium polyzygum is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to north-western Australia. It is an erect or prostrate shrub with pinnate leaves each with sixteen to twenty-one pairs of leaflets, and yellow-orange and greenish, pea-like flowers.

Description

Gompholobium polyzygum is an erect or prostrate shrub that typically grows to a height of with its branchlets densely covered with spreading or curly hairs. Its leaves are pinnate with sixteen to twenty-one pairs of elliptic to more or less round or egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide. The leaves are on a petiole long, the leaflets on petiolules long. The flowers are borne in racemes of between five and sixteen on a peduncle long, each flower on a pedicel long. There are bracts long at the base of the flowers and hairy bracteoles long on the upper part of the pedicels. The sepals are fused at the base forming a tube, the upper lobes long and the lower lobes long. The standard petal is yellow-orange and long, the wings long and the keel orange or yellowish green and long. Flowering occurs from July to October and the fruit is a pod long.

Taxonomy

Gompholobium polyzygum was first formally described in 1862 by Ferdinand von Mueller in Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae. The specific epithet means "many-yolked", referring to the many leaflets of each leaf.

Distribution and habitat

This gompholobium grows open shrubland and grassland in arid inland areas of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Conservation status

Gompholobium polyzygum is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife and as of "least concern" under the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1976.