Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Daviesia latifolia

Flowers and 'leaves'. Photographer Don Wood, Bondi State Forest south of Bombala

Shrub. Photographer Lyn Allison, Westgate Park, Melbourne, Vic

Common name

Hop bitter-pea

Family

Fabaceae

Where found

Dry forest and woodland. Widespread.

Notes

Shrub or tree to 5 m tall. Branchlets angular, hairless, glaucous. 'Leaves' scattered, 2-15 cm long, 5-70 mm wide, slightly glaucous, veins prominent, reticulate, tips rounded to pointed, margins wavy and finely scalloped. Flowers scarcely fragrant. Flowers pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel, standard petal yellow to orange-yellow with a dark brownish red or maroon infusion surrounding an intense yellow bilobed marking at the centre, 4.75-9 mm long, 7-9.5 mm wide, keel maroon. Flowers in many flowered elongated clusters with evenly spaced flowers, on a common stalk 20-130 mm long, the clusters 1-3 together. Flowers Spring to Summer.

Hybridises with Daviesia buxifolia, Daviesia corymbosa, Daviesia leptophylla, and Daviesia mimosoides.

All species of Daviesia have 'leaves' that taste bitter, and hairless triangular pods.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Daviesia~latifolia (accessed 3 April 2021)

Description partly based on Crisp, M.D., Cayzer, L., Chandler, G.R. & Cook, L.G. (2017), A monograph of Daviesia (Mirbelieae, Faboideae, Fabaceae). Phytotaxa 300(1): 123-125, Fig. 51