Common Name

Red-tip Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Tablelands of the Great Divide from Torrington, north-eastern N.S.W., to Dalveen, south-eastern Qld.

Description

Shrubs to 4 m high, or sometimes trees to 5 m. Branchlets slender, dark reddish, glabrous. Phyllodes narrowly linear, straight to shallowly incurved, (4–) 6-10 (-14) cm long, 2–3 mm wide, rounded-mucronulate with ±central mucro, thin, finely wrinkled when dry, glabrous; midrib obscure; gland often absent, variably positioned but commonly near middle of phyllode, small but exserted. Inflorescences 5–15-headed racemes, sometimes in terminal panicles; raceme axes 1.5–5 cm long, slender, glabrous; heads globular, 12–28-flowered, pale to bright yellow; peduncles slender, (2–) 3–8 (–11) mm long, stouter and to 11 mm long in fruit. Flowers 5-merous; sepals united but ultimately splitting and spathulate. Pods linear to narrowly oblong, to 14 cm long, 5–7 mm wide, coriaceous to thinly crustaceous, dark brown to blackish, glabrous, dehiscing unilaterally; stipe 6–7.5 mm long. Seeds longitudinal, oblong, 5.5–6.5 mm long, somewhat shiny, black; aril clavate, as long as seed.

Habitat

Grows in forest communities in sand derived from granite.

Specimens

Qld: 17.5 km N of Stanthorpe on New England Hwy near Cotton Vale, M.E.Ballingall 2292 (NSW, PERTH); Mt Norman, c. 8 km NE of Wallangarra, D.Hockings s.n. (BRI113089). N.S.W.: 1 km N of Torrington on the Silent Grove road, K.Thurtell & R.Coveny 3911 (A n.v., AD n.v., BRI, K n.v., L n.v., NSW, PERTH, RSA n.v., US n.v.).

Notes

Similar to A. adunca which has ±uncinate phyllodes with the glands only slightly exserted, flowers somewhat larger (fide L.Pedley, Austrobaileya 1: 288, 1980) and normally less numerous in the heads, and broader pods. Also resembling A. floydii and A. macnuttiana.

FOA Reference

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

Author

B.R.Maslin

Minor edits by B.R.Maslin & J.Rogers