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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Fabaceae
Pultenaea tenuifolia

Citation: R. Br. ex Sims, Curtis's Bot. Mag. 46:t. 2086 (1819).

Synonymy: P. tenuifolia R. Br. ex Sims var. glabra Benth., Fl. Aust. 2:140 (1864).

Common name: None

Description:
Slender low-spreading shrub, stems to 1 m; branches and leaves softly pubescent to villous; leaves distinctly petiolate, narrow-lanceolate to slender-terete, 4-8 (rarely to 10)mm long, often crowded in widely spaced groups, not rigid, channelled or 1-furrowed above by the involute margins, silky-pubescent underneath, becoming glabrous or rarely glabrous at first; stipules narrow-triangular, acute to acuminate, 1-2 (rarely to 3)mm long, brown or light-brown, leathery, costate, margins scarious.

Flowers sessile, 5-8 (rarely to 10) mm long, 1 or 2 at the tips of short lateral branchlets, surrounded by clustered leaves with enlarged stipules acting as bracts; bracts absent; bracteoles attached at the base of the calyx tube and reaching almost to the top, c. 3 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, scarious or papery, costate, with white appressed hairs distally, ciliate; calyx 4-6 mm long, pink basally, teeth subequal, lanceolate, acuminate, villous, longer than the usually glabrous tube; petals yellow and red; standard orbicular, on a short claw, occasionally red on the back; wings oblong-obovate, auriculate above the long claw; keel semicircular, obtuse, folded at the base of the auricle, clawed; ovary short, villous.

Pod ovate, turgid, exceeding the calyx, villous; seed cordate, c. 2 mm long, brown, dull.

image of FSA2_Pultenaea_ten.jpg Pultenaea tenuifolia twig, leaf and flower.
Image source: fig 368b in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Corrick (1977) Victorian Nat. 94:69, fig. 5.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: EP, MU, YP, SL, KI, SE.   W.Aust.; Vic.; Tas.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Aug. — Dec.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: On the coast it is prostrate, with hardly 50 cm long stems, with pale-yellow flowers to 5 mm long, while inland it is a more robust and erect plant, with brick-red flowers nearly twice as large.

Taxonomic notes: Sometimes confused with P. vestira which has leaves evenly spaced along the stem.

Author: Not yet available


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