Indigenous Climber – Hardenbergia. Purple Coral-pea.
Purple Cora-pea - Hardenbergia violacea. Flowers.
Well spring appears to be just around the corner again! The shortest day has passed and the next round of wildflowers are coming on now that it is late winter. One of the first to emerge in a full display of purple glory is the Purple Coral-pea – Hardenbergia violacea.
This indigenous plant is a climber, extremely hardy and will flourish in dry and sunny conditions. As with many of the pea family of plants Hardenbergia violacia responded well to the recent bushfire, it’s hard seeds survived the fire and the plants were one of the first to flower in the first winter after the bushfire event. Each plant can sprawl out metres across the ground, it readily droops over garden beds or will also willingly climb anything to reach metres off the ground. The purple flowers are truely striking most especially when the are climbing and flowering simultaneously with a wattle. How nature can provide the contrast of yellow and purple is amazing!
The Purple Cora-pea – Hardenbergia violacea is readily cultivated and sold in nurseries. Warning though if you live on a bush block which has a natural population of this species it is important to not plant out cultivated varieties as they can interbreed with the wild population. Mixing the genetic stock may cause the wild plants to loose their natural charateristics that have made them so tough in their local environment.
Purple Coral-pea – Hardenbergia violacea. Climber.
Often the nusery varieties have been cultivated for features such as size, colour or excessive flowering so can actually be quite different from the orginal wild species. Some nurseries specialising in indigenous plants will maintain the natural genetic qualities from local regions so it is always worthwhile trying to source plants from local indigenous nurseries this way for garden use. Although this is an easy plant to collect seed from and germinate, so their really is no need to buy from nurseries if you already have this plant in the wild.
The purple flowers have a variety of bush tucker uses. The flowers can be eaten raw, they make a great color addition to salads. Additionally the flowers were used to make a purple dye. The leaves can also be boiled to make a sweet tea.
Hardenbergia violacia is also an important plant for our wildlife. On our bush block we have readily seen ants carrying seeds underground and parrots such as King Parrots or Crimson Rosellas landing on the ground to eat the seeds. So if you do harvest seeds or flowers from the wild don’t forget to leave some for the wildlife too!
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