NEW SOUTH WALES FLORA ONLINE

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Description: Shrub or tree up to 5 m tall. Indumentum of branchlets, petiole, stipules, pedicel, abaxial surfaces of bract and bracteoles and external surface of calyx dense, yellow, tan or grey, hairs biramate, appressed; red glandular structures conspicuous around axils of leaves, bract and bracteoles.

Leaves narrow-elliptic, lanceolate or oblanceolate, 1.5–5 cm long, 5–20 mm wide, a proportion of much smaller leaves 0.5–1.0 cm long often also present, flat to weakly arched each side of a shallowly recessed midrib, base rounded to acute, margins flat to recurved, apex emarginate, truncate or rounded to acuminate, mucro up to 0.5 mm long; upper surface green, dull to subglossy, ± smooth, glabrous or with appressed hairs along and adjacent to midrib, secondary veins numerous; lower surface including midrib completely obscured by a yellow appressed hairs ageing to grey. Stipules absent.

Inflorescences sessile or on peduncle to 4 mm long, mostly 2- or 3-flowered. Flowers with bracts narrow-oblong, 0.5–1 mm long; bracteoles inserted at or slightly proximal to base of calyx, narrow-oblong, 0.5–1 mm long; calyx 3.2–4.5 mm long; tube 2.5–3.5 mm long; upper lip 3–4 mm wide at base, apex of lobes ± truncate, lower lip 3–4 mm wide across base, lateral and lower lobes 0.5–1 mm long; standard 5–10 mm long, 5–11 mm wide, claw 1.5–2 mm long, limb deep indigo-blue, flare white, c. 2 mm wide; wing 6–8 mm long, 2–3 mm wide, claw 1–2 mm long; keel 5–6 mm long, c. 2 mm wide, claw 1–2 mm long.

Pod irregularly orbicular in profile, slightly angular on upper margin, 10–15 mm long, 10–15 mm deep, stipitate, stipe 3–5 mm long, external and internal surfaces glabrous. Seeds ovate-elliptic, c. 6 mm long, 5 mm wide, moderately compressed, tan, aril circular, less than 1 mm diam., c. 10% of the curved length of seed.

Herbarium Sheet

Herbarium Sheet

Flowering: Flowers in March–September. Fruit matures in June-December.

Distribution and occurrence: Occurs in north-eastern NSWsouth to Lake Glenbawn near Scone and over much of eastern Queensland from Kennedy Hill north of Iron Range National Park on Cape York Peninsula south to the Queensland-NSW border.

Grows in sands and loams derived from sandstone, basalts and serpentinite in rainforest, scrub and woodland.
NSW subdivisions: NC, NT, NWS, CWS, NWP
Other Australian states: Qld

AVH map***

Hovea longipes is very different from other eastern species and perhaps would be better placed in its own genus. The main differences are evident in calyx, pod and seed morphology, leaf venation pattern, indumentum type, and in the absence of stipules. The appressed biramate hairs of H. longipes are possibly homologous with those found in Western Australian species of Hovea.