Swainsona microcalyx
Swainsona microcalyx, commonly known as wild violet, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to southern mainland Australia. It is a prostrate or low-growing perennial herb, with imparipinnate leaves with 5 to 9 broadly egg-shaped to wedge-shaped leaflets and racemes of 5 to 15 purple flowers.
Description
Swainsona microcalyx is a perennial herb, low-lying at first, then with ascending stems up to long and hairy. The leaves are imparipinnate, mostly long with 5 to 9 broadly egg-shaped leaflets with the narrower end towards the base, or wedge-shaped, the lower leaflets mostly long and wide with stipules long at the base of the petioles. The flowers are purple, arranged in racemes of 5 to 15, on a peduncle wide, each flower long on a pedicel long. The sepals are joined at the base to form a tube long, with teeth shorter than the tube. The standard petal is long and wide, the wings long and the keel long and broad. The fruit is a narrowly egg-shaped to elliptic pod about long and wide with the remains of the style about long.
Swainsona microcalyx was first formally described in 1924 by John McConnell Black in the Flora of South Australia. The specific epithet means "a cup" referring to the shape of the sepal tube.
Distribution
This species of pea is mostly found north of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, with an outlier in inland Western Australia.