Cockies Tongues

~ Templetonia retusa ~

FABACEAE

Here are the little licking Cockies Tongues that add colour to the winter landscapes of the south-west. Its grey-green leaves juxtapose gorgeously with its generous scarlet petals, attracting all sorts of red-loving, nectar-munching birds. It’s also an important honey source for butterflies such as the Pea Blue (Lampides boeticus) and relied on by their young for food.

WHERE TO LOOK

You can find Cockies Tongues around the Eremaean and South-West Botanical Province of Western Australia, generally seen in the coastal woodland and heaths over limestone. The Eremaean is a phytogeographic region sometimes referred to as the dry and arid inland and is characterised by its climate and plant life (phytography is essentially botanical geography). Cockies Tongues is also indigenous to the south-west coastline, wrapping itself around the sandy soils of the Great Australian Bight, and up to the Flinders Ranges of South Australia.

FEATURES

Cockies Tongues can grow upright or can sometimes be seen stretched out along the sand. Its limbs can grow to 4m but generally sit at the 2m mark. Coming from the pea family, the fruit is in bean-like pods that grow to about 5cm long. The unusual flowers have a typical pea-flower shape, are around 6cm tall and resemble a bright-red protruding tongue. Rarely, flowers can be seen as white or yellow. The thick succulent-like leaves are oblong in shape, to 40mm, and are a lovely wintery greyish-green.

FLOWERING SEASON

Winter and spring → Cockies Tongues has a definite flowering peak in July and can be seen a month or two either side.

PLANTING

The plants enjoy the sun or part shade and tolerate the humid east coast. Like most of the pea family, seeds need a pre-treatment of boiling water with an overnight soaking to remove their hard coating. See Sturt’s Desert Pea (p. 163) for a full planting run-down.