Gompholobium karijini explained

Gompholobium karijini is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the north-west of Western Australia. It is an erect, openly-branched shrub with pinnate leaves with five to ten pairs of leaflets, and racemes of yellow to orange and creamy-yellow, pea-like flowers.

Description

Gompholobium karijini is an erect shrub that typically grows to high and up to wide with more or less glabrous branchlets. Its leaves are pinnate with five to ten pairs of elliptic to egg-shaped leaflets that are long and wide. The leaves are on a petiole long with stipules long at the base, and the leaflets are on petiolules long. The flowers are borne on racemes of four to more than one hundred, on a peduncle long, each flower on a pedicel long. There are bracts and bracteoles that fall at the bud stage. The sepals are fused at the base with lobes long. The standard petal and wings are yellow to orange and long, and the keel creamy yellow and long. Flowering occurs in January and from August to September and the fruit is a pod about long.[1]

Taxonomy

Gompholobium karijini was first formally described in 2008 by Jennifer Anne Chappill in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected in Hamersley Gorge in Karijini National Park in 1991.[2] The specific epithet (karijini) refers to the type location.[3]

The original description included features that apply to the more recently described G. oreophilum.

Distribution and habitat

This pea grows in grassland with scattered trees and shrubs and is only known from Karijini National Park in the Pilbara region of north-western Western Australia.

Conservation status

Gompholobium karijini is classified as "Priority Two" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife meaning that it is poorly known and from only one or a few locations.[4]

Notes and References

  1. Wilkins . Carolyn F. . Trudgen . Malcolm E. . A new species of Gompholobium (Fabaceae: Mirbelieae) from the Pilbara bioregion of Western Australia . Nuytsia . 2012 . 22 . 1 . 32–34 . 14 August 2021.
  2. Web site: Gompholobium karijini. APNI. 13 August 2021.
  3. Book: Sharr . Francis Aubi . George . Alex . Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings . 2019 . Four Gables Press . Kardinya, WA . 9780958034180 . 230 . 3rd.
  4. Web site: Conservation codes for Western Australian Flora and Fauna. Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife. 13 August 2021.