Dampier’s Pea

STURT’S desert pea flowers from spring to summer, the flaming red floral emblem of South Australia named after British explorer Charles Sturt.

In the Pilbara, the stunning black-eyed pea lines major highways and pastoral properties, the eye-catching species also described as Australian glory pea, lobster claws and blood flower.

Aboriginal people call it the ‘flower of blood’, symbolising the blood stains of two lovers who were killed by the woman’s former betrothed after they eloped to have a child, the first desert pea.

As detailed in ’50 Years of Boom, Bust & Red Dog – The Life & Times of Karratha City’, the first known specimens were collected nearly 150 years before Sturt spotted them in central Australia.

British explorer William Dampier recorded his first sighting of the pea on Rosemary Island on August 22, 1699. His specimens are still housed in the Fielding-Druce Herbarium at Oxford University in England.

Initially, in the 18th century, the pea belonged to the genus Clianthus as Clianthus dampieri and later became more widely known as Clianthus formosus (formosa Latin for ‘beautiful’). It was later reclassified Swainsona formosa, the name by which it is officially known today.

In 1999, a further reclassification to Willdampia formosa was proposed in the publication Western Australian Naturalist but this was rejected by the scientific community in 2000.

A number of scientists StreetWise spoke to believe changing the name to honour the man who first recorded the pea is historically appropriate given the species was one of more than 20 collected by Dampier. Most forms of the flowering creeper are low-growing or prostrate.

In the Pilbara, some have been observed growing up to 2m high.