Chorizema

Plants in the genus Chorizema are mostly shrubs or subshrubs, sometimes climbers, usually with simple leaves arranged in opposite pairs, the flowers usually arranged in racemes, each flower on a short pedicel. The sepal lobes are more or less equal, the upper pair broader and partly joined, the standard petal more or less round or kidney-shaped, the wings oblong and much longer than the keel. The fruit is an oval pod containing 4 to 32 seeds.^[3][4][5]

The genus Chorizema was first formally described in 1800 by Jacques Labillardière in his Relation du Voyage à la Recherche de la Pérouse, and the first species he described (the type species) was Chorizema ilicifolium.^[6][7] The genus name (Chorizema) means "divided thread", Labillardière having noted that the stamens are separate from each other.^[8]

Flame peas are endemic to the south-west of Western Australia, apart from C. parviflorum that occurs in New South Wales and Queensland.^[3][9]

This genus of peas is valued in cultivation for their colourful flowers. Most species do not tolerate frost, and in temperate regions require the protection of glass.^[10]

The following species and subspecies are accepted by the Australian Plant Census as of June 2020:^[1]

The following hybrids have been described:^[11]

• Chorizema ×lowii Hort. ex Rev.