Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Acacia mearnsii
Common name
Late black wattle, Black wattle, Green wattle
Family
Fabaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, shrubland, grassy areas, and along streams and gullies. Widespread.
Notes
Shrub or tree to 16 m tall. Fleshy seed stalks/arils. Bark smooth to fissured, rough and corrugated at the base in old plants. Branchlets angled to cylindrical with ridges, hairy. new shoots covered in yellowish hairs. Leaves alternating up the stems, compound, 1 gland on the leaf stalk, at base of, or to 8 mm below, the lowest pair of pinnae (rarely another smaller gland). Rachis 3–13.5 cm long, hairy, jugary glands present (sometimes to 1 mm below the bases of the pinnae or appearing more interjugary), 1 or occasionally 2 interjugary glands between all or some pairs of pinnae. 14-62 pinnae each 1.5-6 cm long, and with 32-156 leaflets each 0.1-0.4 cm long, 0.4-0.8 mm wide, densely hairy on the lower surface. Young leaves yellow to yellow green. Flower heads cream to yellow, globular, 20-40 flowered (easiest seen in late buds), 6-8 mm in diameter, in branched or elongated clusters. Flowers Spring to Summer. Pods long and narrow, constricted between the seeds.
Family was Mimosaceae.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Acacia~mearnsii (accessed 27 April 2021)
World Wide Wattle photos, line drawings and description: http://www.worldwidewattle.com/imagegallery/image.php?p=0&l=m&id=17958&o=1
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