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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Fabaceae
Swainsona greyana

Citation: Lindley, Edwards' Bot. Reg. 32:t. 66 (1846) subsp. greyana.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Darling pea, hairy Darling pea.

Description:
Shrub-like perennial with several more or less woody stems to 1-2 m high, arising from a strong woody rootstock; leaves 4-16 cm long, with 11-23 leaflets; leaflets oblong or narrow-oblong, 5-35 x 2-15 mm, retuse, glabrous above, often slightly woolly below; stipules triangular to deltoid, 2-10 mm long, slightly woolly outside.

Flowers 15-20 mm long, on woolly pedicels 4-6 (rarely to 10)mm long, with 12 in short to 30 in long racemes on the distal half or two-thirds of the 10-40 cm long peduncles; bract ovate-acute to lanceolate, 4-6 mm long, woolly; bracteoles narrow-lanceolate, as long as the tube, often obscure; calyx 5-9 mm long, densely white-woolly; teeth triangular, shorter than the tube; standard suborbicular, 15-22 mm across, a bright purplish-pink or lavender with a greyish blotch centrally and a pair of strongly developed plate-like calli just above the 4-5 mm long claw; wing shortest, oblong, pink or red, auricled above the 3-5 mm long claw; keel semicircular, pink or red, obtuse, with a pair of long shallow folds near the auricles, claw 4-7 mm long; ovary shortly stipitate, fusiform, glabrous, many-ovulate, tapering into a slender evenly bearded style; tip straight or minutely inflexed without any hair-tufts behind the stigma.

Pod on a distinct to 10 mm long stipe, oblong-ovate, 40-50 x c. 15 mm, tapered at both ends, with a distinct beak to 5 mm long, much inflated, the walls at first thin, later firm and opaque, reticulate-papery, glabrous, the suture ridged and not impressed, to 28-seeded; seed rotund-cordate, c. 4 mm across, olive-green or brown, shiny.

Published illustration: Rotherham et al. (1975) Flowers and plants of New South Wales and southern Queensland, p. 153; Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 414.

Distribution:  Mainly on heavy soils on floodplains. Usually dying back after flowering and making annual growth from its perennial rootstock during the coooler months.

S.Aust.: MU.   Qld; N.S.W.; Vic.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Sept. — March.


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

Biology: Sometimes grazed, Everist (1974) denotes it as one of the most toxic of the Swainsona species.

Author: Not yet available


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