Common Name

Imbricate Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Restricted to the SE part of Eyre Peninsula, S.A., from the Yeelanna–Ungarra road S to Koppio and Warunda.

Description

Dense, spreading, glabrous shrub 1–2 m high; branches somewhat willowy. Branchlets strongly acutely angled towards apices, ribbed below phyllode insertion. Phyllodes crowded, erect, narrowly oblong or linear to oblanceolate, straight, 10–18 mm long, 1–2 (–3) mm wide, l:w = 5–10, ±truncate and excentrically rostellate, imbricate, dark green; midrib not prominent; lateral nerves absent; gland adjacent to apical mucro. Inflorescences 1-headed, rudimentary racemes with axes c. 0.5 mm long, 1 or 2 per axil; peduncles 4–10 mm long, slender; heads prolific, globular, 9–15-flowered, bright golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals free. Pods linear, ±straight, to 7 cm long, 4.5–6 mm wide, firmly chartaceous. Seeds ±longitudinal, oblong to broadly ovate-elliptic, 3.5–4 mm long, slightly ridged peripherally, shiny, dark brown; aril subterminal, clavate.

Habitat

Grows usually in sand in open forest, woodland or open scrub.

Specimens

S.A.: Ungarra to Yeelanna road, B.Copley 2979 (AD); between Yalunda Flat and Tumby Bay, D.J.E.Whibley 1945 (AD).

Notes

A member of the ‘A. microcarpa group’ and perhaps not specifically distinct from A. triquetra which has narrower pods and broader, less regularly erect phyllodes.

Considered conspecific with A. lineata by G.Bentham, Fl. Austral. 2: 354 (1864); the S.A. specimens cited by Bentham are A. imbricata, fide J.H.Maiden, J. & Proc. Roy. Soc. New South Wales 49: 497 (1916).

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