Swainsona brachycarpa

Swainsona brachycarpa is a prostrate or ascending herb, that typically grows to a height of less than with many slender stems arising from its base. Its leaves are imparipinnate, long with stipules long at the base. There are 9 to 13 egg-shaped to narrowly elliptic or egg-shaped leaflets, mostly and wide. The flowers are arranged in racemes long of up to 12, usually only up to 2 flowers open at any one times, on a peduncle up to in diameter, each flower long. The sepals are softly-hairy and joined at the base, forming a tube long, the sepal lobes shorther than the sepal tube. The petals are white, purple or dark red, the standard petal about long, the wings long, and the keel mostly long. The fruit is usually an elliptic pod long and wide with the remains of the style long. ==Taxonomy and naming==

Swainsona brachycarpa was first formally described in 1864 by George Bentham in Flora Australiensis. ==Distribution and habitat==

Slender swainson-pea grows in grassland and woodland in rocky sites and loamy soil in from south-east Queensland to the coast and tableland of northern New South Wales. It is rare in Victoria where it is apparently confined to the north east Grampians. ==Conservation status==

Swainsona brachycarpa is listed as "endangered" under the Victorian Government Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. == References ==