Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Swainsona murrayana
Common name
Slender Darling Pea
Family
Fabaceae
Where found
Dry forest, woodland, shrubland, grassland, disturbed sites, seasonally inundated flats, and around lakes. Western Slopes.
Notes
Perennial herb, prostrate or to 0.3 m tall. Stems densely hairy with appressed hairs attached to the stem in the middle of the hair (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see). Leaves alternating along the stems, 2-10 cm long, compound, with 3-11 leaflets, each 0.5-3 cm long, 1-2 mm wide, surfaces hairless to hairy, margins flat or curved upwards, tips pointed, sometimes curved down. Flowers pink or purple, often with red stripes, about 10 mm long, pea-shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel. Keel strongly twisted. Flowers in mostly 3-11 flowered elongated clusters. Flowers spring to early summer. Plants die back after flowering.
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.
Endangered Vic. Listed in the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, Vic.
NSW Threatened Species profile: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspeciesapp/profile.aspx?id=10779 (accessed 8 January 2021)
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Swainsona~murrayana (accessed 8 January 2021)
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