I mentioned in the last blog that the peas were flowering the Brisbane Ranges at the moment. OK, I found them, I photographed them .... then I tried to identify them. Oh dear. The Fabaceae family is so confusing.
These are some I found. I think they are, from top to bottom, Narrow-leaf Bitter-pea Daviesia leptophylla; Leafless Globe-pea Sphaerolobium minus; Golden Bush-pea Pultenaea gunnii; Dwarf Bush-pea Pultenaea humilis; Parrot-pea Dillwynia sp. I'm happy to be corrected.
Our plant survey at Bannockburn was rewarding because the area along the creek yielded lots of species for us to argue over. This one in particular was tricky. We didn't have enough references with us to solve the problem, but once we got home and put the photos up on the screen and pulled Flora Vic off the self we were in business. Our guess at Daviesia ulicifolia Gorse Bitter-pea was right. The problem was caused because, as Flora Vic says, it's "an extraordinarily variable species". Our plant had spiny phyllodes but they were very hairy and the books didn't mention that, it was growing low to the ground and the books said it was a shrub, and we didn't have any pods - Bitter-peas have triangular shaped pods.
