''Swainsona canescens'', commonly known as grey swainsona, is a flowering plant in the family

Fabaceae Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...

. It is a small perennial herb with pink-purple or purple, yellow and green flowers and grows in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.

Description

''Swainsona canescens'' is an ascending or upright perennial herb with stiff stems over long and more than wide near the base. The leaves are long, usually with 10-13 egg-shaped or broadly elliptic to oblong leaflets, long, wide, almost smooth on upper surface or with silky hairs on both surfaces and occasionally with a triangular, short point or slight notch. The 20-35 flowers are long borne on a

raceme A raceme () or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate growth, 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 ...

, peduncle strong and long. The

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves in size, color, shape or texture. They also lo ...

s are triangular-shaped up to long, smooth on the inside and tapering to a point. The

calyx CALYX, Inc. is a non-profit publisher of art and literature by women founded in 1976 based in Corvallis, Oregon. CALYX publishes both '' CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women'' twice a year and CALYX Books, which publishes one to three ...

is white, woolly to covered in silky, soft, straight hairs. The petals mostly purple, sometimes pinkish-purple or yellow and green, standard petal broadly egg-shaped, finely notched,

wings A wing is a type of fin that produces both lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-drag ratio, which compares the bene ...

oblong-shaped and the

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element of a watercraft, important for stability. On some sailboats, it may have a fluid dynamics, hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose as well. The keel laying, laying of the keel is often ...

semi-circular. Flowering occurs in May or July to December and the fruit is a pod long and about wide, densely covered in short, matted hairs and containing up to 10 seeds.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was described in 1839 by

John Lindley John Lindley Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865) was an English botanist, gardener and orchidology, orchidologist. Early years Born in Old Catton, Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four c ...

, who gave it the name ''Cyclogyne canescens'' in ''

A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony "A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony", also known by its standard botanical abbreviation ''Sketch Veg. Swan R.'', is an 1839 article by John Lindley on the flora of the Swan River Colony. Nearly 300 new species were published in it ...

'', from an unpublished description by

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studie ...

. In 1862

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria, Australia ...

changed the name to ''Swainsona canescens'' and the description was published in ''

Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae ''Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae'' is a series of papers written by the Victorian Government botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in which he published many of his approximately 2000 descriptions of new taxa of Australian plants. Including the p ...

''.

Distribution and habitat

Swainsona canescens usually grows on red sandy soils in Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15482727 canescens Fabales of Australia Flora of South Australia Flora of Queensland Flora of the Northern Territory Flora of Western Australia