Aotus ericoides

Aotus ericoides, the common aotus or golden pea, is a slender erect evergreen shrub of the family Fabaceae growing 0.3-2 m tall and endemic to eastern and southern Australia from Queensland through New South Wales and Victoria to Tasmania and into eastern South Australia. The plant has wiry much-branched stems clothed in short appressed silky hairs, giving young growth a silvery grey appearance. The small leaves are arranged in whorls or pseudo-whorls of three along the stems and are narrow-linear to almost needle-like, 5-15 mm long and 1-2 mm wide, with strongly recurved or revolute margins enclosing the white-hairy lower surface, while the upper surface is glabrous and dark green, creating a heath-like (Erica-like) habit that the epithet recalls. In late winter and spring the shrub bears clusters of small showy pea-flowers in the upper leaf axils, often forming leafy terminal racemes. Each flower is 6-12 mm long with a bright golden yellow standard usually marked with red or brown streaks at its base, and pinkish to reddish wings and keel, set in a silky-hairy calyx. The fruit is a small inflated ovoid hairy pod about 5-7 mm long containing one or two seeds. It is widespread on heaths, sclerophyll forest understorey and woodland on sandy nutrient-poor soils.