Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Daviesia alata
Common name
A bitter-pea
Family
Fabaceae
Where found
Dry forest and heath. Coast, ranges, and the eastern edge of the tablelands north of Batemans Bay and south of Tathra.
Notes
Prostrate or sprawling to erect shrub, to 1m diameter. Branchlets triangular in cross section, flattened, or compressed, winged, hairless, dark green. 'Leaves' alternating along the stems, reduced to scales, or, in young plants, 3-9 cm long, 3-12 mm wide. Flowers pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel, standard petal orange red with a yellow centre, about 4-7 mm long, about 7 mm wide, keel maroon. Flowers in clusters of 2-5 flowers. Flowers Spring to Summer.
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~alata (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): 103-105, Fig. 42
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