Kennedia procurrens



Kennedia procurrens, commonly known as the purple running pea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is a prostrate or climbing herb with trifoliate leaves and pale red to mauve or violet flowers.

Description
Kennedia procurrens is a prostrate or climbing herb with softly-hairy stems 1–2 mm long. The leaves are trifoliate with broadly egg-shaped or broadly elliptic leaves 20–50 mm long and 10–35 mm wide with egg-shaped stipules 4–6 mm long at the base. The flower are pale red to mauve or violet, 10–15 mm long and arranged in groups of two to ten on a flowering stem 10–40 mm long, the flowers on peduncles 130 mm long. Flowering occurs from late winter to summer and the fruit is a glabrous, cylindrical or flattened pod 50–60 mm long.

Taxonomy
Kennedia procurrens was first formally described in 1848 in Thomas Mitchell's Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia. The specific epithet (procurrens) means "extending", "jutting out" or "projecting".

Distribution and habitat
Purple running pea grows in woodland in sandy soil in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales as far south as Coonabarabran.