Flowers. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, near Cameron Corner, SA

Plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, near Cameron Corner, SA

Plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Peter Ollerenshaw, Amphi Sandhills, NSW

Common Name

Skeleton Pea, Yellow Darling Pea, Yellow Swainson Pea

Family

Fabaceae

Notes

Perennial forb or shrub to 2m tall. Leaves alternating up the stems, compound, the leaflets often failing to develop, often appearing leafless. Usually 13-17 leaflets, each 0.1-2.7cm long, 1-15mm wide, flat, upper surface hairless, lower surface sparsely hairy, apex notched. Flowers pea-shaped, yellow with some purple markings, with 5 petals, 2 almost joined together. Flowers in 15-20 flowered racemes.

Differs from Swainsona pyrophila in that the stipules at the base of the leaf are narrow, and the flowers are yellow with some purple markings.

Description and photo (as Swainsona laxa) page 415, and (as Swainsona rigida) page 420, in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales. Note that these descriptions were written before the 2003 revision which subsumed Swainsona rigida into Swainsona laxa.

PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Swainsona~laxa