Bossiaea vombata, commonly known as wombat bossiaea,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the Wombat State Forest in Victoria, Australia. It is an erect shrub with flattened cladodes and yellow, pea-like flowers.
Bossiaea vombata is a more or less glabrous, rhizome-forming shrub that typically grows to a height of up to . The branches are flattened and winged, ending in greyish-green cladodes wide. The leaves are reduced to scales long and up to wide. The flowers are long and arranged singly on a pedicel long with broadly egg-shaped bracts up to long and egg-shaped, brown bracteoles long but that fall off as the flower opens. The five sepals are glabrous and joined at the base, forming a tube long, the two upper lobes long and the lower lobes slightly shorter. The standard petal is uniformly yellow, long and wide, the wings yellow and long, and the keel yellowish-white and long. Flowering occurs in October and fruit is rarely produced.[2] [3] [4] [5]
Bossiaea vombata was first formally described in 2008 by James Henderson Ross in the journal Muelleria from specimens he collected in the Wombat State Forest in 1995.[6] The specific epithet (vombata) refers to the name of the state forest where this species is endemic.
Wombat bossiaea is only known from the Wombat State Forest near Daylesford where it grows in open forest.
This bossiaea is classified as "endangered" under the Victorian Government Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.