Jacksonia alata is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tufted, semi-prostrate to erect shrub with flattened branches, sharply-pointed side branches or phylloclades, leaves reduced to narrowly lance-shaped scales, yellow-orange flowers with a red "eye", and woody, densely hairy pods.
Jacksonia alata is a tufted, semi-prostrate to erect shrub that typically grows up to high and wide. It has ribbed, flattened branches, the side branches sharply-pointed phylloclades wide. Its leaves are reduced to narrowly lance-shaped, dark brown scales, long and wide. The flowers are arranged at the ends of branches in raceme-like clusters on a pedicel long, with narrowly lance-shaped bracteoles long and wide near the top of the pedicels. The floral tube is long and the sepals are membranous, with lobes long and wide. The standard petal is yellow-orange with a red "eye", long, the wings yellow-orange with a red base, long, and the keel is yellow-orange or red, long. The stamens have white filaments with pink ends and are long. Flowering occurs from July to December, and the fruit is a woody, densely hairy pod long and wide.[1]
Jacksonia alata was first formally described in 1837 by George Bentham in Stephan Endlicher's Enumeratio plantarum quas in Novae Hollandiae ora austro-occidentali ad fluvium Cygnorum et in sinu Regis Georgii collegit Carolus Liber Baro de Hügel.[2] [3] from specimens collected near King George Sound. The specific epithet (alata) means 'winged', referring to the stems.[4]
This species of Jacksonia grows on granite outcrops, low slopes and hillsides on the Darling Scarp south from near Bindoon and in scattered places between Dunsborough to east of Esperance, in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Jarrah Forest, Mallee, Swan Coastal Plain and Warren bioregions of south-western Western Australia.
This species is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.