''Swainsona maccullochiana'', commonly known as Ashburton pea, is a species of flowering plant in the family

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

. It is an upright annual with purple-reddish, pink or bluish pea-like flowers from spring to summer and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to Western Australia.

Description

''Swainsona maccullochiana'' is an upright, single-stemmed herbaceous annual to high. The stems are over wide, sturdy, ribbed, needle-shaped, densely covered with fine, spreading hairs up to long that taper to a tip. The leaves up to long with 15-31 broadly egg-shaped to oval-shaped leaflets usually long, wide, apex usually pointed, occasionally rounded or notched. The 20-40 purplish-reddish, pink or bluish or sometimes white pea-like flowers are borne in

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 ...

s of differing age on a peduncle over wide,

pedicel Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures ...

s about long. The standard petal about long, wide, the

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 ...

about long 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 ...

deep. Flowering occurs from July to October and the fruit long, over wide and elliptic-shaped.

Taxonomy and naming

''Swainsona maccullochiana'' was first formally described in 1869 by

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 ...

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 ...

''. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

(''maccullochiana'') is in honour of James McCutcheon.

Distribution and habitat

Ashburton pea grows in moist, low lying areas near watercourses on loam in central Western Australia.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15482602 maccullochiana Fabales of Australia Flora of Western Australia Taxa named by Ferdinand von Mueller