Pultenaea microphylla

Location & distribution maps

Common name:         Spreading Bush-Pea

Conservation status: ...

Etymology:   

• The genus is named in honour of Richard Pulteney, an English surgeon and botanist, who also was the biographer of Linnaeus

• The specific epithet (microphylla) means "small leaves"

• First formally described in 1825 by Augustin Pyramus de Candollein Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis from an unpublished description by Franz Sieber

Flowers

• The flowers are arranged singly or in clusters of up to ten near the ends of branchlets

• Each flower is about 5–10 mm long on pedicels 1.0–1.5 mm long with hairy, narrow triangular bracteoles 1–3 mm long attached to the base of the sepal tube

• The sepals are 2.5–6 mm long and hairy

• The standard petal is yellow with red markings and 7–12 mm long, the wings yellow and the keel dark red

• Flowering occurs from September to December 

Fruit:                            

• A flat pod 3–5 mm long

Leaves:         

• The leaves are arranged alternately, linear to narrow egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, 2–15 mm long and 1–2 mm wide with a small point on the end

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• An erect to prostrate shrub that typically grows to a height of up to 2 m and has softly-hairy stems

Habitat:   

• Grows in woodland and forest

Distribution:                  

• Widespread in the ACT, NSW and south-eastern Queensland

• There is a single record from Tubbut in far north-eastern Victoria

Additional notes:     

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pultenaea_microphylla (2025)