Bossiaea disticha is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the far southwest of Western Australia. It is a weak, slender shrub with oblong to egg-shaped leaves and bright yellow and red flowers.
Bossiaea disticha is a weak shrub that typically grows to a height of up to high, with thin weak, hairy branchlets. The leaves are arranged alternately, oblong to egg-shaped, long and wide on a petiole up to long with a narrow egg-shaped stipule up to long at the base. The flowers are usually arranged singly or in pairs, each flower on a pedicel long with egg-shaped bracts long attached. The five sepals are joined at the base forming a tube long, the two upper lobes long and the three lower lobes long. There are bracteoles long at the base of the sepal tube. The standard petal is bright yellow with a red base and long, the wings yellow with a purpish-brown base and long, the keel greenish-white with a red tip and long. Flowering occurs from September to November and the fruit is an oblong pod long.[1]
Bossiaea disticha was first formally described in 1841 by John Lindley in Edwards's Botanical Register. Lindley described it as "A pretty little shrub, raised in the garden of the Horticultural Society from Swan River seed, presented by Capt. James Mangles R.N. and flowering in March".[2] [3] The specific epithet (disticha) means "in two rows", referring to the leaves.[4]
This bossiaea is common in the understorey of forest, woodland and heath from near Ellen Brook in the north to Cape Leeuwin, in the Jarrah Forest and Warren biogeographic regions of far south-western Western Australia.
Bossiaea disticha is classified as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife.