Bossiaea halophila explained

Bossiaea halophila is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to Western Australia. It is a dense, erect, many-branched shrub with narrow-winged cladodes, leaves reduced to small scales, and yellow-orange and deep red flowers.

Description

Bossiaea halophila is a dense, erect, many-branched shrub that typically grows up to high and wide with more or less glabrous foliage. The branches are sometimes flattened with winged cladodes, the narrowest wide. The leaves are reduced to scales about long. The flowers are usually arranged singly, each flower on a pedicel up to long with several, broadly egg-shaped bracts up to long. The five sepals are joined at the base forming a tube long, the two upper lobes long and the three lower lobes long, with a broadly egg-shaped bracteole up to long on the pedicel. The standard petal is deep yellow or orange yellow and long, the wings about the same length as the standard, and the keel is deep red and long. Flowering occurs in October and the fruit is an oblong pod long.[1]

Taxonomy and naming

Bossiaea halophila was first formally described in 1998 by James Henderson Ross in the journal Muelleria from specimens collected the start of the causeway on the western side of Lake King in 1996.[2] The specific epithet (halophila) means "salt-loving", referring to the preferred habitat of this species.[3]

Distribution and habitat

This bossiaea grows in deep sand around the edge of salt lakes, often with mallee eucalypts and sometimes with Bossiaea cucullata. It occurs from near Pingaring to Hyden and Pingrup with an outlier near Lake King, in the Avon Wheatbelt and Mallee biogeographic regions of south-western Western Australia.

Conservation status

Bossiaea halophila is classified as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife.

Notes and References

  1. Ross . James H. . Notes on Western Australian Bossiaea species (Fabaceae): 3 . Muelleria . 1998 . 11 . 5–8 . 30 July 2021.
  2. Web site: Bossiaea halophila. APNI. 30 July 2021.
  3. Book: Sharr . Francis Aubi . George . Alex . Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings . 2019 . Four Gables Press . Kardinya, WA . 9780958034180 . 213 . 3rd.