Common Name

Georgina Gidgee, Georgina Gidyea, Poison Gidyea

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Occurs in arid eastern Australia, especially in south-eastern N.T., extending into Qld to the Georgina R. basin and just into S.A.

Description

Tree 3–8 m high, malodorous, gnarled or spreading; crown dense. Branchlets with a grey-white mealy bloom, sparsely appressed-puberulous. Phyllodes narrowly elliptic, narrowed at both ends, straight to shallowly recurved, 4–11 cm long, 4–16 mm wide, with grey-white bloom as on branchlets, sparsely appressed-puberulous, with 1–3 nerves more evident than the numerous closely parallel indistinct intervening ones. Inflorescences 5–15-headed racemes; raceme axes 4–8 (–20) mm long, sericeous; peduncles 7–12 mm long; heads globular, 4–4.5 mm diam., 20–25-flowered, golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals free; petals sparsely to densely appressed-puberulous. Pods curved to openly once-coiled, flat, 6–13 cm long, 12–25 mm wide, chartaceous, coarsely reticulate, ±glabrous. Seeds transverse to ±oblique, ±discoid, flat, peripherally crested, 9–12 mm long, dull, dark brown; funicle scarcely arillate.

Habitat

Usually grows on plains and along watercourses in clay and loam, often dominating in low woodland and low open woodland.

Specimens

N.T.: 48 km E of Alice Springs, J.R.Maconochie 2504 (PERTH); 83.7 km S of Alice Springs, D.J.Nelson 516 (PERTH). S A.: Mt Dare Stn, P.K.Latz 4776 (PERTH). Qld: 38 km NW of Oban Stn, R.A.Perry 802 (CANB n.v., NSW, PERTH).

Notes

Closely related to A. cambagei but, unlike that species, it contains fluoroacetic acid and is extremely poisonous to livestock. The foetid odour (which is especially evident during wet weather or when the phyllodes are crushed) of this species and A. cambagei occurs also in A. pachycarpa.

FOA Reference

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

Author

R.S.Cowan