Common Name

Hyden Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Restricted to a small area around Hyden in south-western W.A. Planted more widely as a windbreak; unpalatable to livestock.

Description

Spreading shrub 2 m high. Branchlets resin-ribbed, white-sericeous especially at nodes but indumentum often ±obscured by resin. Phyllodes ascending, linear to linear-elliptic, straight or weakly curved, (3–) 4.5–6 (–8) cm long, 3–5 (–6) mm wide, obtuse-mucronulate to subacute, glabrous except white-sericeous at base and on pulvinus, with numerous subdistant nerves and sometimes few anastomoses between them; gland basal. Inflorescences 1- or 2-headed racemes or simple; raceme axes 0.5–3 (-7) mm long, terminated by a normally dormant resinous vegetative bud at anthesis; peduncles 3–5 mm long, white-sericeous but indumentum ±obscured by red-brown resin hairs except at base; heads globular, 4-6 mm diam., 34–38-flowered. Flowers 5‑merous; sepals free. Pods linear, raised over seeds, arcuate, to 12 cm long, 2–3 mm wide, thinly crustaceous, glabrous, viscid. Seeds longitudinal, oblong, 3.5–4.5 mm long; aril apical.

Habitat

Grows with Eucalyptus loxophleba or E. salmonophloia along creek and drainage lines, in red or brown clay, clay loam or gravelly loam.

Specimens

W.A.: Kulin, 22 km S of Hyden, 21 Aug. 1985, K.Atkins s.n. (CANB, MEL, NSW, NY, PERTH); Hyden, July 1979, R.Lane s.n. (PERTH 00336963).

Notes

A member of the ‘A. flavipila group’ and seemingly closely allied to several species in the A. ixiophylla alliance, fide R.S.Cowan & B.R.Maslin, Nuytsia 7: 194 (1990). Acacia lanei is distinguished most readily from A. ixiophylla by its elongated phyllodes and from all related species by the white indumentum in the phyllode axils and at the base of the peduncles. Superficially similar to A. pelophila and A. spongolitica.

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 J.Reid

R.S.Cowan, B.R.Maslin