Pultenaea spinosa, commonly known as grey bush-pea or spiny bush-pea,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is a low-lying to erect shrub with glabrous stems, egg-shaped to rhombic leaves, and yellow-orange and red, pea-like flowers.
Pultenaea spinosa is a low-lying to erect shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has glabrous stems. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs or in whorls of three, egg-shaped to rhombic, long, wide with triangular stipules long at the base and a sharp point on the tip. The flowers are arranged in loose groups near the ends of branches and are long, each flower on a pedicel long with glabrous bracteoles long attached at the base of the sepal tube. The sepals are long, the standard petal is yellow-orange with a red base and long, the wings yellow-orange and long, and the keel reddish-brown, yellow or orange and long. Flowering mainly occurs from September to November and the fruit is a pod long.[2] [3] [4]
Grey bush-pea was first formally described in 1825 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle who gave it the name Oxylobium spinosum in Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis.[5] [6] In 1922, Herbert Bennett Williamson changed the name to Pultenaea spinosa in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria.[7] The specific epithet (spinosa) means "spiny".[8]
Pultenaea spinosa grows in forest in rocky sites in eastern Queensland south from the Leichhardt district, in eastern New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and north-eastern Victoria.