Eriosema kraussianum

Eriosema kraussianum, commonly known as the pale yellow eriosema, is an erect perennial that grows from a woody rootstock, forming clumps and reaching heights from 9 cm to 35 cm. The stems don’t branch higher up.

The trifoliolate leaves ascend on short petioles with longish, brown, papery stipules present opposite the alternate leaves. The green leaflets are narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, tapering to acutely pointed tips. The thinly silky-haired leaflets fold in along their midribs or curve in, the spaced, parallel, lateral veins ascending to the margins. Leaflet dimensions are about 30 mm to 60 mm long and about 12 mm wide.

The flowers grow in erect, dense racemes on peduncles from leaf axils. The slightly angled down flowers resemble peaflowers. They are pale yellow and often nearly white on the inside of the recurving banner petals and the outsides of the wing petals. Flower diameter is about 12 mm. The sepals are green and white-haired or rusty-haired. Flowering happens in spring. The fruit is a hairy pod, 15 mm long and 8 mm wide.

The species distribution is in the east of South Africa, from the Eastern Cape, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal to Mpumalanga, also in Lesotho and eSwatini.

The habitat is stony grassland and woodland. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; https://www.worldfloraonline.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).