Bossiaea obcordata, commonly known as spiny bossiaea,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is an erect, rigid shrub with spiny branches, heart-shaped to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, and yellow and purplish-brown flowers.
Bossiaea obcordata is an erect, rigid shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has flattened branchlets that become spiny with age. The leaves are arranged alternately along the stems, broadly egg-shaped to heart-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, sometimes almost round, long and wide on a petiole long with narrow triangular stipules long at the base. The flowers are mostly long and arranged singly along the branches, each flower on a pedicel up to long. The sepals are long with bracteoles up to long on the pedicel. The standard petal is yellow with a red base and up to long, the wings usually purplish-brown and about wide and the keel pinkish to red and wide. Flowering occurs from September to October and the fruit is a narrow oblong pod long.[2] [3] [4]
Spiny bossiaea was first formally described in 1804 by Étienne Pierre Ventenat who gave it the name Platylobium obcordatum in his book, Le Jardin de la Malmaison.[5] [6] In 1917, George Claridge Druce changed the name to Bossia obcordata and the new name is accepted by the Australian Plant Census.[7] The specific epithet (obcordata) refers to the obcordate shape of the leaves.[8]
Bossiaea obcordata grows in forest and heath, often on dry sandstone ridges and slopes. It is found from far south-eastern Queensland through the coast, western slopes and tablelands of eastern New South Wales, to central and eastern Victoria. Specimens recorded from Tasmania are now included in Bossiaea tasmanica.[9]