Dusky coral-pea

Kennedia rubicunda, the dusky coral pea or running postman, is a vigorous, woody twining climber or trailing perennial of the Fabaceae endemic to eastern Australia, with stems extending several metres over shrubs, banks and disturbed ground. Young stems and petioles are densely clothed with soft, rusty-brown to silvery hairs that gradually become glabrescent with age. Leaves are alternate and trifoliolate, with broadly ovate to elliptic leaflets 3-10 cm long, dark green and almost glabrous above, paler and pubescent beneath, with prominent reticulate venation; stipules are conspicuous, broadly ovate and persistent. The pea-flowers are large, 2.5-4 cm long, deep dusky red to reddish-purple, with a recurved standard, narrow keel and wings, borne in axillary racemes of two to six on stout peduncles. The calyx is broadly campanulate and densely pubescent, with broad upper lobes. Pods are linear-oblong, 4-9 cm long, flattened, densely hairy when young, becoming dark brown and dehiscent at maturity; they contain numerous hard, mottled seeds. The species grows in sclerophyll forest, woodland margins and coastal heath on sandy or skeletal soils from Victoria through New South Wales to Queensland.