''Podolobium aestivum'', is a flowering plant in the family

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

and is endemic to New South Wales, Australia. It is an upright shrub with green spiky leaves and orange pea-like flowers.

Description

''Podolobium aestivum'' is an upright shrub high, lower leaf surface and young stems covered with flattened or spreading hairs. The leaves are arranged opposite, usually long, wide, upper surface shiny and veined, margins more or less evenly lobed and sharply pointed. The stipules are stiff, sharp, curved, and up to long. The flowers are borne in

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

s in leaf axils, occasionally longer than the leaves,

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 are oval-shaped and small. The orange

corolla Corolla may refer to: *Corolla (botany), the petals of a flower, considered as a unit *Toyota Corolla, an automobile model name * Corolla (headgear), an ancient headdress in the form of a circlet or crown * ''Corolla'' (gastropod), a genus of moll ...

is about long and the

calyx Calyx or calyce (plural "calyces"), from the Latin ''calix'' which itself comes from the Ancient Greek ''κάλυξ'' (''kálux'') meaning "husk" or "pod", may refer to: Biology * Calyx (anatomy), collective name for several cup-like structures ...

about long. Flowering occurs in spring and summer, and the fruit is an oblong shaped

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 ...

, more or less straight, long, about in diameter with short, soft hairs.

Taxonomy and naming

''Podolobium aestivum'' was first formally described in 1995 by Michael Crisp and Peter Henry Weston and the description was published ''Advances in Legume Systematics''. 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 ...

(''aestivum'') means "pertaining to summer, and refers to the main flowering period".

Distribution and habitat

This podolobium grows on rocky locations in sclerophyll forest in the

Gibraltar Range The Gibraltar Range is a mountain range in the Northern Tablelands region of New South Wales, Australia. The range extends off the Great Dividing Range at Bald Nob about east northeast of and trends generally east northeast and north northea ...

and on Mount Warning in New South Wales.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q65945880 Fabales of Australia Flora of New South Wales aestivum Plants described in 1995