Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Pultenaea villosa
Common name
Hairy bush-pea, Bronze bush-pea
Family
Fabaceae
Where found
Wet and dry forest, woodland, heath, grassy sites, and coastal dunes. Coast and ranges. Rarely elsewhere.
Notes
Shrub to 2.5 m tall, or prostrate. Bark smooth. Stems hairy to sparsely hairy. Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.3-1 cm long, 1.2-3 mm wide, tips blunt to rounded or rarely pointed, and curved down, margins curved to rolled upwards, upper surface hairless, slightly paler than the lower surface, midrib raised; lower surface with sparse, pale hairs, denser near the margins, both surfaces the same colour or the lower surface darker than upper surface. Flowers 5-12 mm long, pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel, standard petal yellow to orange, with red-brown stripes on the front, wings yellow to orange, keel red-brown. Flower in leafy clusters. Bracteoles linear to triangular or with three teeth at the tips, papery, usually inserted on the calyx tube. Pods with a tuft of hairs at the tips. Flowers most of the year.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Pultenaea~villosa (accessed 2 February, 2021)
Description partly taken from: Kok, R.P.J. de & West, J.G., (2002) A revision of Pultenaea (Fabaceae) 1. Species with ovaries hairless and/or with tufted hairs. Australian Systematic Botany 15(1): 111-112, Fig. 11 (map)
This identification key and fact sheets are available as a free mobile application:
