Leptosema chambersii
Leptosema chambersii, commonly known as Chamber's leptosema, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to inland areas of western Australia. It is a low shrub growing in small, dense clumps, covered with silky hairs, spiny branchlets, leaves reduced to egg-shaped scales, red flowers and beaked, broadly elliptic pods.
Description
Leptosema chambersii is a low shrub growing in small, dense clumps, with many tangled branches and branchlets, and that typically grows to up to high. Its adult leaves are reduced to scales about long. The flowers are resupinate, and borne in rosettes of 2 to 20 flowers at the base of the plant, each flower on a pedicel long with narrowly egg-shaped bracteoles long. The sepals are long and form a tube about long. The petals are red, the standard petal is enclosed in the sepals, long and broad, the wings are linear, long and wide with the keel protruding and long. The ovary is more or less sessile with about 60 ovules. Flowering mainly occurs between July and October, and the pods are sessile and beaked, long and wide including the beak.
Taxonomy
Leptosema chambersii was first formally described in 1860 by Ferdinand von Mueller in his Essay on the plants collected by Mr Eugene Fitzalan during Lieut. Smith's Expedition to the Estuary of the Burdekin from specimens collected "between the rivers Stephenson and Finke" by John McDouall Stuart. The specific epithet honours James Chambers, "whose munificence the brilliant exploit was solely initiated and supported".
Distribution and habitat
This species of Leptosema grows in on red sand on sand dunes and sandplains in hummock grassland, mainly dominated by Triodia basedowii in the Eremaean province of Western Australia, the southern half of the Northern Territory and the north-western corner of South Australia.
Leptosema chambersii is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.