Hovea impressinerva
Hovea impressinerva is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is a shrub or small tree many parts covered with dense, golden brown hairs, the leaves strap shaped to very narrowly elliptic with stipules at the base, and mauve, pea-like flowers.
Description
Hovea impressinerva is a shrub or small tree that typically grows to a height of up to, many parts densely covered with curled, golden brown hairs. The leaves are strap-shaped to very narrowly elliptic, long, wide on a petiole up to long with egg-shaped stipules about long at the base. The upper surface of the leaves is more or less glabrous and glossy green, the lower surface covered with curled, golden hairs on the veins. The flowers are arranged in groups of three on a peduncle long with oblong to egg-shaped bracts long and oblong to narrowly egg-shaped bracteoles long at the base. The sepals are long forming a tube long. The standard petal is mauve with a greenish yellow centre, and long, wide. The wings are long and wide, and the keel long and wide. Flowering occurs in July and August, and the fruit is a round or broadly elliptic pod long, deep and sessile and covered with brown, crumpled hairs. The seeds are elliptic with a narrowly oblong aril extending for about 90% of the length of the seed.
Taxonomy and naming
Hovea impressinerva was first formally described in 2001 by Ian R. Thompson in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected near the Lake Moogerah to Mount Alford road in 1988.
Distribution and habitat
This species of pea grows in forest in far south-eastern Queensland, south and south-west of Brisbane, and on Mount Warning in far north-eastern New South Wales.