Common Name

Leichhardt’s Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Sporadic from the Blackdown Tableland SE to Helidon near Toowoomba, Qld.

Description

Spreading shrub to c. 3 m high; branches slender and often arching downwards. Branchlets pilose to villous. Phyllodes patent to reflexed, narrowly oblong, oblong-elliptic to lanceolate, straight to shallowly incurved, 1.5–3 cm long, 3–6 mm wide, abruptly contracted at base, apiculate, glabrous or ±sparsely hairy on the prominent midrib and margins, with indumentum sometimes dense or covering lamina; lateral nerves absent or obscure; gland 2–12 mm above pulvinus, sometimes absent. Inflorescences 12–20-headed racemes; raceme axes 3–8 cm long; peduncles 3–8 mm long, ±glabrous; heads globular, 20–40-flowered, bright golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals united. Pods narrowly oblong, curved to straight, to 10 cm long, 8–10 mm wide, firmly chartaceous to thinly coriaceous, densely velvety pilose, dehiscing unilaterally. Seeds longitudinal, oblong to elliptic, 5–6 mm long, black; funicle encircling seed; aril clavate.

Habitat

Grows in shallow soil in sandstone ranges, in Eucalyptus open forest with closed scrub.

Specimens

Qld: Isla Gorge Natl Park, 40 km N of Taroom, M.E.Ballingall 2440 (CANB, K, PERTH); 9.6 km N of Helidon, L.Pedley 1404 (BRI).

Notes

The precise taxonomic affinities of this species are unclear, although the seeds encircled by the funicle suggest its inclusion in the ‘Acacia microbotrya group’. It sometimes resembles A. uncifera.

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