Family: Fabaceae
Swainsona villosa
Citation:
J. Black, Fl. S. Aust. 319 (1924).
Synonymy: Not Applicable Common name: None
Description:
Small to rather robust herbs with spreading or ascending stems, 5 to over 30 cm long; pubescence moderately dense to villous, of long loosely spreading basifixed hairs on the stem, leaves and peduncle; leaves 2-8 cm long, with 5-15 (usually 9-13) leaflets; leaflets oblong or narrow-obovate, 5-15 (usually 8-12)x2-6 mm, apex rounded, slightly notched or truncate, becoming glabrous above; stipules leafy, lanceolate, 4-10 mm long, the margin irregularly toothed or slightly undulate, sparsely pubescent.
Flowers 10-12 mm long, on 2-3 mm long pedicels which are pubescent with short dark hairs, in 5-20-flowered racemes, on the distal half of the 15-20 cm long peduncle; bract lanceolate-acuminate, 3-5 mm long, exceeding the pedicel, pubescent; bracteoles linear or narrow-lanceolate, 1-1.5 mm long; calyx 4-6 mm long, pubescent with long white and/or brown spreading hairs, teeth triangular, acuminate, about equalling the tube; petals pink-rose to purple; standard elliptic, broader than long, slightly notched, with 2 yellowish-green blotches centrally, not suddenly contracted into the wide 1.5-2 mm long triangular claw; wings shortest, oblong, broadly rounded, broadly auriculate above the narrow c. 2 mm long claw; keel semicircular, with a shortly and bluntly pointed darker tip, widely auriculate above the narrow c. 3 mm long claw, without pouches or folds; ovary shortly stipitate, fusiform, densely pubescent with long loosely appressed hairs; style stout, bearded chiefly in the upper half, the tip straight, truncate, with an oblique ring or tuff of forward-pointing hairs behind the rarely inflexed stigma.
Pod oblong-ovoid, 10-15 x 6-10 mm, suture deeply impressed, valves thin, pubescent with dispersed long softly spreading hairs, c. 20-seeded; seed obliquely cordate, c. 2 mm across, brown, foveolate.
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Image source: fig. 342A in J.P. Jessop and H.R. Toelken Ed. 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
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Distribution:
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On stone and sandplains.
S.Aust.: NW, LE, NU, GT. W.Aust.; N.T.
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Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: June — Oct.
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SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
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Biology:
No text
Author:
Not yet available
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