Swainsona lessertiifolia, commonly known as coast swainson-pea, bog pea, Darling pea poison pea or poison vetch[1] is an erect or ascending perennial herb in the pea family and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It has 13 to 21 narrowly elliptic to elliptic leaflets, and racemes of mostly 12 to 25 usually purplish, rarely white flowers.
Swainsona lessertiifolia is an erect or ascending perennial herb that typically grows up to tall. Its leaves are mostly long with 13 to 21 narrowly elliptic to elliptic leaflets long and wide with hairy stipules long at the base of the petioles. The flowers are arranged in racemes mostly long with 12 to 25 flowers on a peduncle wide, each flower long on a hairy pedicel about long. The sepals are joined at the base, forming a hairy black, bell-shaped tube long, the sepal lobes usually shorter than the tube. The petals are dark to pale purple, rarely white, the standard petal long and wide, the wings long, and the keel long and deep. Flowering mostly occurs from August to January and the fruit is elliptic, and wide.[2] [3]
Swainsona lessertiifolia was first formally described in 1825 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in Annales des Sciences Naturelles.[4] [5]
This species of swainsona occurs in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, often on sand hummocks in near-coastal areas. In South Australia it is found in the south-east of the state, in Victoria it is abundant, mostly west of Wilsons Promontory[6] and in Tasmania grows at Woolnorth, St Marys and on Bass Strait Islands.[7]