Hovea tasmanica is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, endemic to Tasmania, Australia. It is a shrub with very narrowly elliptic or narrowly oblong or strap-like leaves, groups of two or three mauve pea flowers, and moderately hairy, sessile pods.
Description Hovea tasmanica is a shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and is covered with brown to grey, often coiled or curved hairs. The leaves are very narrowly elliptic or narrowly oblong to strap-shaped, long and wide on a petiole long. There are stipules long at the base of the petioles. The flowers are mostly borne in groups of two or three on a peduncle long, each flower on a pedicel long, with egg-shaped bracts and bracteoles long at the base. The sepals are long and joined at the base, forming a tube long, the upper lip about wide. The petals are mauve, the standard petal long with a central purple "flare", the wings wide. Flowering occurs in September and October and the pods are sessile and moderately hairy, the seed with an aril about long.
Taxonomy and naming Hovea tasmanica was first formally described in 2001 by I.R. Thompson and the description was published in Australian Systematic Botany.
Distribution and habitat This hovea grows on dry rocky ridges of slopes in forest or scrub in central and north-eastern Tasmania.
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