Bossiaea eriocarpa, commonly known as common brown pea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a shrub with narrow oblong or linear leaves and yellow and red flowers.
Bossiaea eriocarpa is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and usually has densely hairy branches. The leaves are narrow oblong or linear, long and wide on a petiole long with a stipule long at the base. The leaves are glabrous, the lower surface paler than the upper surface. The flowers are arranged singly or in small groups, each flower on a pedicel long with overlapping, bracts up to long. The sepals are joined at the base forming a tube long, with lobes long, the upper two lobes much broader than the lower three. There are egg-shaped or elliptic bracteoles up to long on the pedicel. The standard petal is yellow with a red base and long, the wings long, the keel red or reddish-purple and long. Flowering occurs from July to November and the fruit is an oblong pod long.[1]
Bossiaea eriocarpa was first formally described in 1837 by George Bentham in Enumeratio plantarum quas in Novae Hollandiae ora austro-occidentali ad fluvium Cygnorum et in sinu Regis Georgii collegit Carolus Liber Baro de Hügel from specimens collected near King George Sound.[2] [3] The specific epithet (eriocarpa) means "wool-fruited".[4]
Common brown pea grows in a range of habitats in near-coastal areas from Zuytdorp Nature Reserve north of Kalbarri to near Albany in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Geraldton Sandplains, Jarrah Forest and Swan Coastal Plain biogeographic regions of south-western Western Australia.
Bossiaea eriocarpa is classified as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife.