Flowers. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Cawndilla Lake, Menindie, NSW

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Cawndilla Lake, Menindie, NSW

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Cawndilla Lake, Menindie, NSW

Common Name

Purple Swainson-pea, Purple Darling Pea

Family

Fabaceae

Notes

Perennial forb to 70cm tall.  Leaves alternating up the stems, composed of 5-15 leaflets, each 0.9-3cm long, 1-5mm wide, flat, hairy or occasionally hairless, the tips rounded and notched.  Lateral leaflets often appearing 3-toothed at the summit. Flowers purple, pea-shaped, with five petals, two almost joined together.  Flowers in 3-20 flowered racemes. Endangered Vic.  Threatened list Vic.

Description (as Swainsona stipularis var. purpurea and Swainsona stipularis var. longialata) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 421. 

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