''Bossiaea eremaea'' is a species of flowering plant in the family
and is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to Western Australia. It is an openly-branched, spreading, more or less leafless shrub with deep yellow and purplish flowers.
Description
''Bossiaea eremaea'' is an openly-branched, spreading shrub that typically grows up to high and wide with young branchlets that or slightly flattened to oval in cross-section. The leaves, when present, are oval, elliptic or oblong, long and wide, but usually quickly fall off. The flowers are arranged singly or in small groups, each flower on a
pedicel
Pedicle or pedicel may refer to:
Human anatomy
*Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures
...
long with overlapping, broadly egg-shaped
bract
In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...
s up to long. The
sepal
A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined b ...
s are joined at the base forming a tube long, with five pinkish-red lobes, the two upper lobes long and the three lower lobes long, with egg-shaped
bracteoles long on the pedicel. The
standard petal is deep yellow with a purplish-brown base and long, the
wings pinkish-red with a yellow tip and long, the
keel
The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...
purplish-red and long. Flowering occurs from July to September and the fruit is a
pod
Pod or POD may refer to:
Biology
* Pod (fruit), a type of fruit of a flowering plant
* Husk or pod of a legume
* Pod of whales or other marine mammals
* "-pod", a suffix meaning "foot" used in taxonomy
Electronics and computing
* Proper ort ...
long.
Taxonomy and naming
''Bossiaea eremaea'' was first formally described in 2006 by
James Henderson Ross in the journal ''
Muelleria'' from specimens he collected east of
Mount Magnet
Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest.
Mount or Mounts may also refer to:
Places
* Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England
* Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...
in 1998.
The
specific epithet
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
(''eremaea'') means "desert", referring to the deep sand in which this species grows.
Distribution and habitat
This bossiaea grows in deep sand in woodland from near
Sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
to near
Laverton in the
Great Victoria Desert
The Great Victoria Desert is a sparsely populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in Western Australia and South Australia.
History
In 1875, British-born Australian explorer Ernest Giles became the first European to cross th ...
and
Murchison biogeographic regions
A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions.
De ...
of Western Australia.
Conservation status
''Bossiaea eremaea'' is classified as "
Priority Three" by the Government of Western Australia
Department of Parks and Wildlife
The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and e ...
meaning that it is poorly known and known from only a few locations but is not under imminent threat.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q51043388
eremaea
Eudicots of Western Australia
Plants described in 2006