Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Daviesia mimosoides
Common name
Blunt-leaf Bitter-pea
Family
Fabaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, shrubland, heath, and rocky sites.
(subsp. acris) Restricted to rocky peaks at high altitude. Kosciuszko National Park, the mountains to the north, ACT, and the Tinderry Range east of the ACT.
(subsp. mimosoides) Widespread. Rare on the Western Slopes.
Notes
Shrub to 2 m tall, rarely a tree to 5 m tall. Branchlets angular-cylindrical, hairless. 'Leaves' scattered, 0.15-20 cm long, 4-30 mm wide, dull green or slightly glaucous, lateral veins arising from the midrib in pairs, margins entire, rarely finely scalloped, tips pointed to rounded. Flowers pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel, standard petal yellow to orange with a red to brown or purplish infusion, and with an intense yellow bilobed marking at the centre, 4-7.5 mm long, 5.5-8 mm wide, keel maroon. Flowers in 5-10 flowered clusters on a common stalk 2-12 mm long, 1-3 clusters together. Flowers Winter to Summer.
Hybridises with Daviesia buxifolia, Daviesia latifolia, and Daviesia leptophylla.
All species of Daviesia have 'leaves' that taste bitter, and hairless triangular pods.
subsp. acris has 'leaves' that are somewhat glaucous, relatively wider, and margins with obscurely rounded teeth.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
Rare Vic.
subsp. mimosoides has 'leaves' that are dull green to somewhat glaucous, relatively narrower, with margins that are not toothed.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
PlantNET description of species and key to subspecies: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Daviesia~mimosoides (accessed 4 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): 113-117, Figs. 47, 48
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