Polygala rhinanthoides Sol. ex Benth.

Annual herb, erect, rarely with short spreading to ascending lateral branches, up to 60 cm high; indumentum of curved and straight hairs, sometimes with curved hairs only. Stems occasionally tinged red. Leaves linear to lanceolate, 6–83 mm long, 1.5–7.0 mm wide; apex acute, obtuse or rounded, mucro 0.3–0.4 mm long; petiole 0–2 mm long. Inflorescence supra-axillary, a raceme to 110 mm long, exceeding or shorter than the leaves. Pedicel to 5 mm long. Alae sometimes perpendicular, mostly deflexed to reflexed in fruit (position), thinly herbaceous, ovate to widely ovate, 4.8–7.7 mm long, 2.5–7.1 mm wide, usually with curved hairs, sometimes straight hairs present especially on the margin or glabrescent. Corolla purple; floral appendages fimbriate; upper petal claw 1.2–1.5 mm wide. Stamens terminate at stigma, monadelphous; staminal flap 1.5 mm wide. Style hooked (horseshoe-shaped at apex), with beak on curve of bend, terete in middle and dorsoventrally flattened at base and below hook, twisting in apical half, with flat stigma along inner surface of hook. Capsule sometimes perpendicular, mostly deflexed to reflexed, ± aligned with alae, with wing (the wing 0.7–3.0 mm wide, ± equal throughout), widely ovoid to orbicular, 3.3–5.5 mm long, 3.0–3.5 mm wide; lobe apices rounded and separated. Seed ovoid-obloid, 2.7–4.0 mm long, 1.3–1.8 mm wide, with indumentum of fine white or ferruginous hairs. Aril head round, 0.5–0.75 mm long, white or white and brown, with short erect hairs. Aril appendages 3, narrowly oblong, 1.0–2.3 mm long.

Found in eucalypt woodlands in sandy soils or loam and in seasonally inundated situations.