Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Pultenaea capitellata

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Two River Plain east of Cooma

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Namadgi National Park, ACT

Shrub. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer M Crisp, Upper Bluegum Creek, ACT

Line drawings. b. flowering stem; leaf and stipules; flower. J Armstrong, National Herbarium of Victoria, © 2021 Royal Botanic Gardens Board

Common name

Hard-head bush-pea

Family

Fabaceae

Where found

Dry forest, woodland, wet heath, grassy sites, and swamps. Ranges, tablelands, ACT, the mountains to the west, and Kosciuszko National Park. Coastal south from Jervis Bay.

Notes

Shrub, sprawling to prostrate, rooting at the nodes, to 0.25 m tall. Stems hairy. Leaves sometimes with sharp tips. Leaves alternating along the stems, 0.3-1.6 cm long, 1.2-10 mm wide, convex in cross section with a central groove, tips pointed to blunt and curved down, margins curved to rolled down, upper surface hairless with conspicuous lateral veins, darker than the lower surface; lower surface covered with pale, silky, appressed hairs. Flowers pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel. Standard petal 8.8-10 mm long, yellow to orange with red to dark markings, wings yellow to orange, keel red to purple. Bracteoles linear to 3-toothed at the tips, inserted on the calyx tube. Flowers in dense clusters. Flowers Spring to Summer. Pods densely to sparsely hairy, smooth.

All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.

Rare Vic.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Pultenaea~capitellata  (accessed 2 February, 2021)

Description partly taken from:  Kok, R.P.J. de & West, J.G., (2004) A revision of the genus Pultenaea (Fabaceae) 3. The eastern species with curved down leaves. Australian Systematic Botany 17(3): 282-283, Fig. 5b (map)