''Hovea elliptica'', commonly known as the tree hovea or karri blue bush, is an

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that i ...

in the family

Fabaceae The Fabaceae or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomenc ...

that is native to

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. This plant was cited as ''Hovea Celsi'' in ''Description des plantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre'' by Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland.

Description

The erect and slender shrub or small tree typically grows to a height of . It is usually single stemmed and the young branches are covered in spreading often rust coloured hairs. The stipules are narrow triangular and around in length. The alternately arranged leaves have an elliptical blade to around in length. The species has purple or blue flowers that appear between August and December in its native range. The pea shaped flowers are arranged in short clusters among the leaf axils. The axillary

inflorescences An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

contain one to seven flowers. The

seed pod This page provides a glossary of plant morphology. Botanists and other biologists who study plant morphology use a number of different terms to classify and identify plant organs and parts that can be observed using no more than a handheld magnify ...

s that form later are ovoid to ellipsoid in shape and are in length and wide. The olive brown seeds within have an elliptic shape and in length and wide.

Taxonomy

The species was first formally in 1808 as ''Poiretia elliptica'' by

James Edward Smith James Edward Smith may refer to: * James Edward Smith (botanist), English botanist and founder of the Linnean Society * James Edward Smith (murderer), American murderer * James Edward Smith (politician), Canadian businessman and mayor of Toronto * ...

in 1808 in the work ''Characters of Platylobium, Bossiaea and of a new Genus named Poiretia'' as published in ''Transactions of the Linnean Society of London''. It was later transferred to the genus ''Hovea'' by the botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1825 in the work ''Leguminosae. Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis''. Numerous synonyms are known including ''Goodia simplicifolia'' as described by Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel in 1827, ''Phusicarpos elliptica'' by Jean Louis Marie Poiret in 1816 and ''Platychilum celsianum'' by Jean-Claude Michel Mornant de Launay in 1819.

Distribution

It occurs on sand dunes, slopes ridges and

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

outcrops in the

South West The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

and Great Southern regions of Western Australia where it grows in clay, loamy, sandy and gravelly lateritic soils often rich in organic matter. Usually part of the understorey in

jarrah ''Eucalyptus marginata'', commonly known as jarrah, djarraly in Noongar language and historically as Swan River mahogany, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tree with roug ...

, marri and

karri ''Eucalyptus diversicolor'', commonly known as karri, is a species of flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae and is Endemism, endemic to the Southwest Australia, south-west of Western Australia. It is a tall tree with smooth light grey to cre ...

forest communities and is often associated with ''

Bossiaea aquifolium ''Bossiaea aquifolium'', commonly known as water bush, nedik or netic, is a species of flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae and is endemic to Southwest Australia. It is a slender shrub or small tree with egg-shaped leaves arranged in oppos ...

'' subsp. ''laidlawiana'' and ''

Hovea chorizemifolia ''Hovea chorizemifolia'', commonly known as the holly-leaved hovea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a small, upright shrub with prickly, green leaves and blue ...

''.

Cultivation

It is sold commercially as seedlings or in seed form, the seeds germinate readily but need to be scarified or pre-treated with boiling water. The plant prefers well-drained soils and an open sunny or partly shaded position. It is

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

tolerant but frost tender.

References

* * *

External links

National Library of Australia ''Hovea celsi''
paint {{Taxonbar, from=Q5664146 elliptica Rosids of Western Australia Plants described in 1825 Taxa named by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle