Chorizema carinatum

Chorizema carinatum is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It is an erect or spreading shrub with sharply-pointed leaves and bright yellow flowers.

Description
Chorizema carinatum is an erect or spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of 10–60 cm. The leaves are scattered, leathery, oblong or lance-shaped and up to 25 mm long with a small, rigid, sharply-pointed, down-turned tip on the ends. The flowers are arranged on the ends of branches in racemes 25–50 mm long, each flower on a short pedicel. The sepals are 6.0–8.5 mm long and silky-hairy, the petals yellow and often barely longer than the sepals. Flowering occurs from October to December.

Taxonomy
This species was first formally described in 1844 by Carl Meissner who gave it the name Callistachys carinata in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae from specimens collected in Kent in 1840. In 1992, Joan Taylor and Michael Crisp transferred the species to Chorizema as C. carinatum in Australian Systematic Botany. The specific epithet (carinatum) means "keeled", referring to the leaves.

Distribution and habitat
Chorizema carinatum grows in sand and sandy clay in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Jarrah Forest and Swan Coastal Plain bioregions of south-western Western Australia.

Conservation status
This pea is listed as "Priority Three" by the Western Australian Government Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.