Common Name

Flax-leaved Wattle, White Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Occurs on the E side of the Great Divide from near Singleton S to near Mittagong, and near Narooma (c. 200 km S of Mittagong), N.S.W.

Description

Graceful open shrub 2–6 m high; branches arching. Branchlets finely ribbed, usually glabrous. Phyllodes rather crowded, ±spreading erect to erect, linear, 2–5 (–7) cm long, usually 0.8–2.5 mm wide and flat, commonly narrowed at base, mucronulate, thin, glabrous except pulvinus often sparsely hairy abaxially; midrib not prominent; lateral nerves obscure or absent; gland not prominent, 5–15 mm above pulvinus. Inflorescences racemose; raceme axes 2–5 cm long, slender, usually glabrous; peduncles 2–5 mm long, slender, usually glabrous; heads globular, 6–12-flowered, creamy white to pale yellow. Flowers 5-merous; sepals united, 1/4 length of petals; ovary glabrous. Pods stipitate, to 10 cm long, sometimes to 15 cm, 7–15 mm wide, firmly chartaceous to thinly coriaceous, dark purplish brown to black. Seeds longitudinal, oblong-elliptic to ovate, 5 mm long, dull, black; aril subclavate.

Habitat

Usually grows in sand on sandstone in dry sclerophyll forest or woodland.

Specimens

N.S.W.: Running Stream Ck, c. 5 km ENE of Glen Davis, E.F.Constable 5131 (NSW, PERTH); Asquith, Oct. 1967, M.Debenham s.n. (PERTH).

Notes

Allied to A. meiantha and A. boormanii.

G.Bentham, Fl. Austral. 2: 371 (1864), included elements of A. fimbriata under A. linifolia. J.H.Maiden, Forest Fl. New South Wales 5(2): 29-34, pl. 157 (1911), discussed and illustrated the differences between these two species.

A variant from the Howes Mtn region, N.S.W., is recognised by the following characters: phyllodes very slender, 0.5–1 mm wide, flat to ±terete, midrib very obscure or absent; branchlets, peduncles and raceme axes frequently hairy (e.g. E.F.Constable s.n., NSW178572, PERTH). Intermediates between ‘typical’ A. linifolia and the variant appear to occur at Howes Mtn.

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 B.R.Maslin

B.R.Maslin