Pultenaea vestita, commonly known as feather bush-pea,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to south-western continental Australia. It is an erect to prostrate, sometimes mat-forming shrub with elliptic to linear or lance-shaped leaves, and yellow and red, pea-like flowers.
Pultenaea vestita is an erect to prostrate, sometimes mat-forming shrub that typically grows to a height of with hairy branchlets. The leaves are elliptic to linear or lance-shaped, mostly long and wide with stipules long at the base. The leaves are concave to channelled on the upper surface. The flowers are long, sessile and usually arranged in dense heads on the ends of branches surrounded by enlarged, two-lobed stipules up to long. The sepals are long and joined at the base with tapering lobes and bracteoles long at the base. The standard petal is yellow to red and long, the wings yellow to red and long, and the keel crimson and long. Flowering occurs from November to January and the fruit is a slightly flattened pod.[2]
Pultenaea vestita was first formally described in 1811 by Robert Brown in William Aiton's Hortus Kewensis.[3] [4] The specific epithet (vestita) means "clothed", referring to the overlapping stipules.[5]
Feather bush-pea grows in forest, heathland and mallee in Western Australia around Esperance and in South Australia on the Yorke and Eyre Peninsulas and on Kangaroo Island.
Pultenaea vestita is classified as "Priority Three" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, meaning that it is poorly known and known from only a few locations but is not under imminent threat.[6]