Pultenaea spinosa
Pultenaea spinosa, commonly known as grey bush-pea or spiny bush-pea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is a low-lying to erect shrub with glabrous stems, egg-shaped to rhombic leaves, and yellow-orange and red, pea-like flowers.
Description
Pultenaea spinosa is a low-lying to erect shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has glabrous stems. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs or in whorls of three, egg-shaped to rhombic, long, wide with triangular stipules long at the base and a sharp point on the tip. The flowers are arranged in loose groups near the ends of branches and are long, each flower on a pedicel long with glabrous bracteoles long attached at the base of the sepal tube. The sepals are long, the standard petal is yellow-orange with a red base and long, the wings yellow-orange and long, and the keel reddish-brown, yellow or orange and long. Flowering mainly occurs from September to November and the fruit is a pod long.
Taxonomy
Grey bush-pea was first formally described in 1825 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle who gave it the name Oxylobium spinosum in Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis. In 1922, Herbert Bennett Williamson changed the name to Pultenaea spinosa in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. The specific epithet means "spiny".
Pultenaea spinosa grows in forest in rocky sites in eastern Queensland south from the Leichhardt district, in eastern New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and north-eastern Victoria.