Jacksonia racemosa
Jacksonia racemosa is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is an erect to prostrate, spindly shrub with greyish-green branches, with leaves reduced to scales leaves, yellow flowers with red markings and scattered along the branches, and woody, hairy pods.
Description
Jacksonia racemosa is an erect to prostrate, spindly shrub that typically grows to high and wide, its branches greyish-geen, with sharply-pointed branchlets long and long at the base of the plant. Its leaves are reduced to dark-brown, narrowly egg-shaped scales, long, wide and sometimes have toothed edges. The flowers are scattered along the branches on pedicels long, with narrowly egg-shaped bracteoles long and side on the middle of the pedicels. The floral tube is long and the sepals are membranous, with lobes long and wide. The standard petal is yellow with red markings, long and broad, the wings yellow with red markings, long, and the keel is dark red, long. The stamens have white, pink or red, filaments long. Flowering occurs from July to February, and the fruit is a woody, narrowly elliptical pod long, wide and glabrous or with white hairs pressed against the surface.
Taxonomy
Jacksonia racemosa was first formally described in 1848 by Carl Meissner in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae from specimens collected by James Drummond in the Swan River Colony. The specific epithet means 'racemose'.
Distribution and habitat
This species of Jacksonia grows on lateritic ridges or flats in heathland or woodland from east of Perth to the Stirling Ranges and east of Munglinup to Esperance in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Jarrah Forest and Mallee bioregions of south-western Western Australia.
Conservation status
Jacksonia racemosa is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.