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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Fabaceae
Glycine tabacina

Citation: Benth., Fl. Aust. 2:244 (1864).

Synonymy: -Kennedia tabacina Labill., Sert. Austr. Caled. 70 (1825).

Common name: Variable glycine, glycine pea.

Description:
Stems slender and elongated to 1 m long, usually creeping or trailing, occasionally twining, more or less retrorsely strigose to glabrescent, rising from a woody often thickened rootstock; leaves pinnately 3-foliolate; petioles 5-45 mm long, with a similar pubescence to the stem; leaflets thin, generally more or less strigose beneath, sparingly strigose to glabrous above, the terminal often larger or longer than the lateral; those of the lower leaves usually broadly obovate to elliptic, 10-15 x 8-14 mm, obtuse to truncate, occasionally emarginate, apiculate or acute, tapering at the base, often prominently net-veined beneath; leaflets of the upper leaves usually elliptic-lanceolate to narrowly oblong-lanceolate or linear, 7-50 x 3-7 mm, acute to blunt and apiculate, abruptly tapering to rounded at the base, on hirsute petiolules 1-2 mm long; occasionally all of the leaves elliptic to broadly oblong, 20-40 x 10-20 mm; the stipels acicular, 1-1.5 mm long; stipules deltoid to oblong-lanceolate, 1.5-3 mm long, obtuse to acuminate, sparsely strigose to glabrous.

Flowers 6-8 mm long, on strigose pedicels 0.5-2 mm long; racemes on peduncles 2-12 cm' long distally, loosely 4-12-flowered; bract and bracteoles subulate, 1-2 mm long; calyx 3-4 mm long, strigose to glabrous, the teeth broadly to narrowly lanceolate, equalling or shorter than the tube, the upper 2 united to the middle or above; petals blue to violet or purplish; standard obovate, c. 6 x 5 mm, ascending to reflexed; wings obovate-oblong, shorter; keel shortest, obovate, auriculate above a long and slender claw.

Pod linear, 15-30 X 3-3.5 mm, compressed, with a persistent strigose to glabrous style, 3-6-seeded; seed oblong to ovoid, 1.7-3 x c. 1.7 mm, often truncate at the ends, smooth and dull to glossy, purplish-black, the aril an erect scarious scale.

image of FSA2_Glycine_tab.jpg
Image source: fig. 314B in J.P. Jessop and H.R. Toelken Ed. 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 394.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: FR, NL, SL, SE.   W.Aust.; ?Qld; N.S.W.; Vic.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: March.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: Generally uncommon, usually in small colonies in relatively protected areas, on heavy clay soils. The tap root has a liquorice flavour and was said to have been chewed by the Aborigines (Cribb, 1974).

Author: Not yet available


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