Swainsona pyrophila, commonly known as yellow Swainson-pea or yellow Darling pea,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to southern continental Australia. It is an erect or spreading annual or short-lived perennial plant with imparipinnate leaves with 15 to 19, mostly egg-shaped leaflets with the narrower end towards the base, and racemes of 15 to about 20 yellow flowers.
Swainsona pyrophila is an erect or spreading, perennial or short-lived annual plant, that typically grows to a height of up to and has mostly glabrous stems. The leaves are imparipinnate, mostly long with 15 to 19 egg-shaped leaflets with the narrower end towards the base, the leaflets mostly long and wide. There are stipules mostly long at the base of the petioles. The flowers are arranged in racemes long of 15 to about 20, on a peduncle wide, each flower about long. The sepals are joined at the base, forming a tube long with lobes shorter than the sepal tube. The petals are yellow, the standard petal about long and wide, the wings about long, and the keel long and about deep. Flowering mainly occurs from September to December and the fruit is a crescent-shaped to elliptic pod long with the remains of the style about long.[2] [3]
Swainsona pyrophila was first formally described in 1991 by Joy Thompson in the journal Telopea.[4] [5] The specific epithet (pyrophila) means "fire-loving", referring to its association with recently burny areas.
Swainsona pyrophila grows in mallee scrub, usually only after fire, and occurs in the eastern half of South Australia, and in adjacent areas of the Victoria and New South Wales.