Common Name

Black Gidyea, Blackwood

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Occurs in central Qld across the Great Divide from the Torrens Ck area E to the Isaac R. basin, being particularly common in the Cape, Suttor and Belyando R. basins.

Description

Tree 8–25 m high. Bark hard, furrowed, dark grey or black. Branchlets glabrous or subglabrous. Phyllodes ascending, narrowly linear-elliptic, straight or occasionally slightly recurved, 8–17 cm long, 4–13 mm wide, acute, coriaceous, glabrous or subglabrous, with numerous closely parallel nerves of which 1–3 are more prominent than the rest. Inflorescences 12–30-headed racemes; raceme axes 2–6 cm long, subglabrous; peduncles 5–10 mm long, glabrous or subglabrous; heads globular, 3.5 mm diam., 12–20-flowered, golden. Flowers 4-merous, rarely with intermixed 5-merous flowers; sepals united near base. Pods linear, to 12 cm long, 10–13 mm wide, thin, glabrous. Seeds longitudinal, soft, broadly oblong or elliptic to subcircular, ±discoid, 10–13 mm long, dull, brown, exarillate.

Habitat

Grows mostly in dark cracking clay, either alone or, on the southern and eastern edge of its range, with Brigalow (Acacia harpophylla).

Specimens

Qld: 10 miles [16 km] NE of Natal Downs Stn, Adams 979 (AD, CANB n.v., NSW, PERTH).

Notes

Similar in general appearance to A. harpophylla which has larger flower-heads, shorter racemes and subterete, longitudinally ribbed pods; the two species share the mainly tetramerous flower characteristic, details of flower structure and morphology of the soft seeds.

FOA Reference

Data derived from Flora of Australia Volumes 11A (2001), 11B (2001) and 12 (1998), products of ABRS, ©Commonwealth of Australia

Author

Minor edits by B.R.Maslin

R.S.Cowan