Jacksonia capitata
Jacksonia capitata is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south of Western Australia. It is a spindly, low-lying to erect ascending shrub with curly, greyish green, cylindrical branches, the leaves reduced scales, and yellow-orange and red flowers in clusters at the ends of the shoots.
Description
Jacksonia capitata is a spindly, low-lying to erect ascending shrub that typically grows up to high and wide. It has greyish-green, branches long and, its leaves reduced to egg-shaped scales, long and wide. The flowers are arranged in umbel-like clusters on the ends of shoots, each flower on a pedicel long, with egg-shaped or narrowly egg-shaped bracteoles long and wide with toothed edges. The floral tube is long and the sepals are membraneous, with lobes long and wide. The standard petal is yellow-orange with a red "eye", long and wide, the wings yellow-orange with dark red markings, long, and the keel is red, long. The stamens have pink filaments with a red tip and are long. Flowering occurs from September to January, and the fruit is a membraneous pod long and wide.
Taxonomy
Jacksonia capitata was first formally described in 1837 by George Bentham in his Commentationes de Leguminosarum Generibus from specimens collected by Ferdinand Bauer. The specific epithet means 'capitate', referring to the head of flowers.
Distribution and habitat
This species of Jacksonia grows in sandy soils on headlands or plains between the Stirling Range and Israelite Bay, with an isolated population in the Lane Poole Reserve, in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Jarrah Forest and Mallee bioregions of southern Western Australia.
This species is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.