Swainsona rostrata is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to Central Australia. It is a prostrate or low-growing annual or perennial plant with imparipinnate leaves with 7 to 9 egg-shaped leaflets with the narrower end towards the base, and racemes of usually up to 5 purple or cream-coloured flowers.
Swainsona rostrata is prostrate or low-growing annual or perennial plant that typically grows to a height of up to about . Its leaves are imparipinnate, mostly long on a variably-sized petiole, with 7 to 9 egg-shaped leaflets with the narrower end towards the base, the side leaflets mostly long and wide. There is a stipule long at the base of the petiole. The flowers are arranged in racemes long with up to 5 flowers on a peduncle up to wide, each flower about long on a pedicel about long. The sepals are joined at the base, forming a tube about long, the sepal lobes usually twice, to three times as long as the tube. The petals are purple and/or cream-coloured, the standard petal long and wide, the wings about long, and the keel about long and deep. The fruit is long and wide.[1]
Swainsona rostrata was first formally described in 1993 by Joy Thompson in the journal Telopea from specimens collected on the Burt Plain by Desmond Nelson in 1962.[2] The specific epithet (rostrata) means "beaked",[3] referring to the shape of the keel.
This species of pea grows in heavy red soil on stony plains, mainly in the south of the Northern Territory, with some occurrences in adjacent areas of South Australia.[4]