Citation: A. Lee, Contr. N.S.W. natn. Herb. 4:419 (1973).

Synonymy: Ptychosema stipulare J. Black, Trans. R. Soc. S. Aust. 62:103 (1938).

Common name: Sand pea.

Description:
Small prostrate herbaceous plants; stems sometimes reddish with a more or less dense pubescence of spreading hairs or subglabrous with appressed hairs; leaves digitately 3-foliolate, on slender pubescent 2-9 mm long petioles; leaflets broad-ovate to rarely obcordate, 2-6 mm long, pubescent on both surfaces or glabrous above in older leaves; stipules ovate, acute, 3-6 x 2-4 mm, green, villous.

Flower solitary, leaf-opposed, on a slender spreading-pubescent peduncle 8-18 mm long; pedicel short, 1-2 mm long; bract ovate-lanceolate, c. 2 mm long, villous, often fallen; bracteoles distal, subulate, c. 1.5 mm long, villous, persistent; calyx c. 3.5 mm long, contracted at the base into a long cylindrical hypanthium, sparsely to densely pubescent; teeth narrow-ovate, equalling the tube, upper 2 teeth slightly broader, joined higher up; lower 3 longer; standard subovate, retuse, 5-6 mm long, on a long claw about half of its length, yellow, drying purplish, veins dichotomous; wings smaller, similar in colour; keel equalling the wings, rounded at the apex, greenish-yellow.

Pod oblong, shortly tapered at both ends, 20-30 x 4-5 mm, flat, margins firm but not thickened; seed globular, c. 2.5 mm, mottled with black on red, exarillate.

	Muelleranthus stipularis, stipules, flowers, legume and seed.
Image source: fig 375a in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 407.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NW, LE, GT.   W.Aust.; N.T.; Qld; N.S.W. Conservation status: native Flowering time: July — Oct.

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

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available