Common Name

Gill’s Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Restricted to the Port Lincoln–Marble Ra.–Ungarra area, southern Eyre Peninsula, S.A.

Description

Straggly open shrub or tree 2–4 m high; branches pendulous. Branchlets flexuose, flat or angled at extremities, dark red-brown, glabrous. Phyllodes subdistant, patent, sometimes reflexed, narrowly oblanceolate, sometimes linear, normally shallowly incurved, 6–17.5 cm long, 5–15 mm wide, tapered at base, obtuse, coriaceous, glabrous; midrib and margins prominent; lateral nerves obscure; gland 1–10 mm above pulvinus; pulvinus 2–4 mm long. Inflorescences racemose, sometimes simple; raceme axes 2–8 cm long, normally flexuose; peduncles 1–2 cm long, somewhat stout, glabrous; heads globular, densely 43–72-flowered, golden; bracteoles golden-fimbriolate. Flowers 5-merous; sepals united to near their apices. Pods linear, to 17 cm long, 5–7 mm wide, coriaceous-crustaceous, glabrous. Seeds longitudinal, elliptic, 4.5–6 mm long, dull, black; funicle encircling seed usually in a double fold, dark red; aril clavate.

Habitat

Grows in clay or loam in open scrub, often with Eucalyptus diversifolia and E. phenax.

Specimens

S.A.: c. 8 km E of Cockaleechie on the Moreenia–Tumby Bay road, A.E.Orchard 2998 (AD); c. 1.6 km N of Port Lincoln on the hwy to Coffin Bay, M.D.Tindale 489 (AD, NSW, PERTH); Marble Ra., J.Z.Weber 5969 (AD).

Notes

A member of the ‘A. microbotrya group’, distinguished from A. retinodes by its wiry, open habit, pendulous branches, flexuose branchlets and longer peduncles. Acacia cretacea has a similar habit to that of A. gillii but is distinguished especially by its pruinose, non-flexuose branchlets, straight, rather crowded, grey-green to glaucous phyllodes (midgreen in A. gillii) 7–10 cm long and 35–45-flowered heads.

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 J.Rogers