Pultenaea echinula

An erect shrub, to 1 metre tall with spreading branches to 1 metre wide. It can have hairless to sparsely hairy stems.

It is confined to NSW, as far south as Bulli in the south-east, extending north-west through Appin and Katoomba and north to the east of Kandos. There are also a few records north and north-west of Orange; south of Bathurst, as well as south-east of Wollombi.

It typically grows in dry sclerophyll woodlands and forests on sandstone ridges.

Pultenaea is a member of the “pea” family. This generally means that leaves are alternate with stipules (leaf-like appendages) at the base of the petioles. Pultenaea spp. however, can sometimes have opposite leaves or leaves in whorls of 3. One of the key features of Pultenaea is that the stipules are fused behind the axillary bud.

In this species, the leaves are alternate although densely arranged, linear to needle-like, to 15 mm long and 1 mm wide with a groove along the upper surface; covered in small pimple-like glands (tuberculate) and with a short aristate tip.

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). Pultenaea spp. sometimes have bracts surrounding the inflorescences, and bracteoles attached to the calyx tube or just below on the pedicels (at different locations in different species). These bracteoles can also have accompanying stipules.

In this species, flowers are arranged in dense terminal clusters, to 10 mm long, yellow to orange in colour, without bracts but surrounded by leaves. The standard petal is about 1 cm across with reddish stripes; the wings are yellow to orange and the keel is red.

The fruit of all peas is a pod. In this species, they are to 6 mm long and swollen.