Common Name

Birds Nest Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Known only from Mt Gason Bore on the Birdsville Track and c. 100 km N of Mt Gason in north-eastern S.A., and from the Andado Stn–O’Neill Point area in south-eastern N.T., c. 400 km NW of Mt Gason.

Description

Bushy shrub or tree 3–5 (–7) m high, spreading by suckering. Branchlets glabrous or subglabrous, scurfy. Stipules spinose, (3–) 5–12 mm long, spreading. Phyllodes ±sessile, ±erect, terete or rarely flat, (1–) 1.5–6.5 (–7) cm long, 1–2 (–2.5) mm wide, pungent, with slender cusp, rigid, minutely hirtellous, glabrous, often scurfy, obscurely 4-nerved; gland ±basal, discoidal, to 0.7 mm diam., with a smaller gland at base of cusp. Inflorescences simple, 1 or 2 per axil; peduncles 1–2.5 cm long, minutely hirtellous; heads globular, 35–40-flowered, golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals free ('united' in protologue). Pods narrowly oblong, to 4 cm long, 6–10 (–14) mm wide, chartaceous, finely and openly obliquely reticulate, light brown, glabrous. Seeds (very immature) seemingly transverse with a filiform, straight funicle.

Habitat

Grows on gibber-covered sandplains and in stony sand over clay on low residual mesas and adjacent flats, in association with Atriplex and Sclerolaena spp.

Specimens

N.T.: Andado Stn, P.K.Latz 6790 (PERTH). S.A.: Mt Gason Bore, F.Badman 317 (AD).

Notes

Perhaps most closely related to A. cuspidifolia but distinguished from this species, and other members of the 'A. victoriae group', by its pungent, terete phyllodes. Superficially similar to A. atrox.

Conservation

Conservation status ‘poorly known’ in J.Briggs & J.Leigh, Rare Threatened Austral. Pl. 96 (1995).

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, J.Reid & J.Rogers

B.R.Maslin