Common Name

Phantom Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

An uncommon, localised species occurring on Pine Mtn, Vic., and c. 35 km away in the Dora Dora State Forest, N.S.W.

Description

Open shrub 1–4 m high; stems silvery grey; branches slender. Branchlets ±sparsely appressed-puberulous with short, straight, silvery hairs. Phyllodes distant, narrowly linear, slender, incurved, some ±tortuous, flat or (especially near base) ±quadrangular, 5–12.5 cm long, 1–2 mm wide, often ±uncinate with a coarsely pungent to innocuous mucro, glabrous to subglabrous, asperulous on margins and midrib; midrib narrow but raised. Inflorescences simple, 2 per axil; heads obloid, sessile, 8–12-flowered, light golden. Flowers 4-merous; sepals 2/3-united. Pods submoniliform, curved to sigmoid, to 9 cm long, 2.5–4.5 mm wide, thinly coriaceous, longitudinally nerved, densely appressed white-puberulous when young, subglabrous at maturity. Seeds longitudinal, 3–4 mm long, subshiny, dark brown; aril terminal.

Habitat

At Pine Mtn it grows among granite rocks in sheltered gullies.

Specimens

N.S.W.: Dora Dora State Forest, 23 Sept. 1977, M.Butz (NSW). Vic.: Pine Mtn, 8 Dec. 1974, J.H.Willis (PERTH).

Notes

This species is an insubstantial shrub with an open, wraith-like appearance. Close relatives for this species are uncertain, although M.D.Tindale, Telopea 1: 371 (1978), suggested affinities with A. genistifolia. It is superficially similar to A. microneura from W.A., which is readily distinguished by its plurinerved phyllodes.

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

Minor edits by B.R.Maslin