Acacia linifolia (Vent.) Willd.
WATTLE
Acacias of Australia
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
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