Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Bossiaea oligosperma

Leafy stems with pods. Photographer Jackie Miles, Windellama, north of Braidwood

Shrub. Photographer Jackie Miles, Windellama, north of Braidwood

Common name

Few-seeded bossiaea

Family

Fabaceae

Where found

Dry forest, low woodland, and stony slopes and ridges. Between east of Lake Bathurst and near Goulburn. Blue Mountains National Park.

Notes

Shrub to 2 m tall. Bark of mature plants distinctly flaky. Stems cylindrical, hairy, becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.25-0.5 cm long, 2.5-5 mm wide, upper surface hairless or almost hairless, lower surface with soft, crinkly hairs, becoming more or less hairless, tips pointed and curved down. Flowers mostly 8-11 mm long, pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel. The front of the standard petal yellow with a red flare, the back red in the middle, wings flushed purple-brown throughout or mainly yellow at the tip, keel pink grading to dark red. Flowers Spring.

Vulnerable Australia. Vulnerable NSW. Provisions of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 No 63 relating to the protection of protected plants generally also apply to plants that are a threatened species.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Bossiaea~oligosperma  (accessed 4 January 2021)

NSW Threatened Species profile with photos and line drawing: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspeciesapp/profile.aspx?id=10104 (accessed 4 January 2021)

Description partly based on: Thompson, I.R., (2012) A revision of eastern Australian Bossiaea (Fabaceae: Bossiaeae). Muelleria 30(2): 157