Hovea purpurea

A shrub to 3 metres tall, with a spread of around 1 metre. Most parts are covered in light to dark grey hairs.

It has a mostly tablelands-occurrence in NSW, growing on the southern, central and northern tablelands and north-western slopes, with some records in coastal areas (Grafton and Sydney) and growing commonly on the south coast inland areas. It grows just into far-north-eastern Victoria, as also just into Queensland, found at Stanthorpe. There is a large disjunction in South Australia, where it grows, from south-east to north-east of Port Augusta.

It is found in dry sclerophyll woodland and forest, often on rocky ridges and slopes, as well as scrublands along creeklines.

Hovea is a member of the “pea” family. This generally means that leaves are alternate with stipules at the base of the petioles. Hovea have simple and alternate leaves, with stipules present or absent, sometimes caducous which means forming and then falling off quickly.

In this species, leaves are to 7 cm long and to about 1.7 cm wide, narrow-elliptic to narrow-oblong, partly glossy-green above, with a short mucro and with the lower surface covered in creamy to brown hairs.

Flowers are, of course, pea-shaped (a term sometimes used is papilionate), with 5 petals in a fixed arrangement; the main back petal is called the “standard”, two lateral petals called “wings” and two fused petals at the bottom called the “keel” (in which the anthers and one carpel tend to be hidden). In this species, flowers are produced mostly in pairs, in leaf axils, mauve to purple (sometimes white), with the standard petal about 15 mm across and bearing a yellow spot, occurring in Spring and Summer.

The fruit of all peas is a pod. In this species, they are approximately to 17 mm by about 10 mm wide and bearing a gold layer of hairs. The olive to black-brown seeds are to 7 mm long.