Daviesia bursarioides

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Three Springs daviesia, Daviesia bursarioides, is a flowering plant in the pea family that is found only in a small part of the south-west of Western Australia.

Description
It is a straggling shrub up to about 2 metres tall with widely spreading, spiny branches. Its leaves are reduced to scattered, narrow, flattened leaf-like structures called phyllodes, about 3–20 mm long and 0.75–2.5 mm wide. Flowers appear in groups of three to eight in the leaf axils on a short stalk, with individual flowers on short stalks and small bracts at the base. The sepals are about 4 mm long. The standard petal is yellow with a maroon centre, about 7.5–10 mm long and 9–10 mm wide, with a notched tip. The wings are deep pink, and the keel is maroon. The plant flowers from June to September, and the fruit is a flattened triangular pod about 10–14 mm long.

Taxonomy
Daviesia bursarioides was first described in 1995 by Michael Crisp from specimens collected near Three Springs in 1980. The name bursarioides means “Bursaria-like.”

Habitat
This species grows in undulating mallee shrubland around Three Springs, in the Avon Wheatbelt biogeographic region of south-western Western Australia.

Conservation
Daviesia bursarioides is classified as endangered under the Australian Government EPBC Act, and a recovery plan has been prepared. It is also listed as Threatened Flora (Declared Rare Flora — Extant) by the state department. The main threats are the inappropriate maintenance of roads, fences, and firebreaks.