Swainsona oliveri F.Muell.

Scientific Description

Prostrate,spreading or scrambling, herb. Stems terete, not spiny, hairy; pustules or glands absent. Leaves or phylloclades clearly present, compound, alternate, continuous with stem, 20-35 mm long, hairy, with simple hairs, flat with flat margins; margins entire; tubercles absent, leaflets 9-13, pinnately arranged, terminal leaflet present, stalked; pustules or glands absent. Stipules present and persistent to older leaves, 2 mm long, without glands, ribless. Pedicel present, 1.5-2 mm long, hairy. Bracteoles present and persistent, 1 mm long, hairy, not striate. Calyx 3-4 mm long, not accrescent, hairy, with simple hairs, ribless; pustules or glands absent. Corolla 5-6 mm long, uniformly coloured, yellow; claws present, keel 5.5 mm long, beaked or not beaked, not auriculate, glabrous. Stamens ten; anthers 0.3 mm long, at two different levels (filaments alternately long and short); filaments united in an open sheath with one free stamen, 4-5.5 mm long. Ovary stipitate, glabrous; style 7 mm long, glabrous, bearded (with a tuft of hairs at apex), terete. Fruit dehiscent (a pod or follicle), 15-20 mm long, 3-7 mm wide, stipitate, not constricted between the seeds, round in cross-section, hairy, with simple hairs. Flowers in September. Occurs in the Eremaean and South-West Botanical Province, in the Pilbara, Yalgoo, Murchison, Great Victorian Desert, Coolgardie, Nullarbor, Hampton and Avon Wheatbelt IBRA regions.