Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Occurs in north-western N.T., including Melville Is., S to near Katherine.

Description

Trees 4–6 m tall with pendulous branches. Bark hard, furrowed. Branchlets glabrous. Phyllodes pendulous, lax, narrowly linear, shallowly curved, 12–30 cm long, (0.5–) 1–3.5 mm wide, obtuse with small uncinate mucro overtopping small gland, glabrous, 3-nerved with midrib the most prominent; basal gland near pulvinus. Inflorescences 1–3 per axil, 10–18-headed racemes; raceme axes 3–15 cm long, glabrous; peduncles 4–15 mm long, glabrous; heads globular, 5 mm diam., 20–25-flowered, pale yellow. Flowers 5-merous; sepals free. Pods narrowly oblong, slightly raised over and irregularly ±constricted between seeds, straight, to 14.5 cm long, (9–) 11–14 mm wide, firmly chartaceous, openly reticulate, glabrous. Seeds oblique, broadly elliptic, 6.5 mm long, dull dark brown, exarillate.

Habitat

Grows in gravelly red earth and lateritic soil, scattered in open forest and woodland.

Specimens

N.T.: Cobourg Peninsula, G.Wightman 129 & C.Dunlop (PERTH); 25 km SE of Darwin, G.Wightman 1666 (PERTH).

Notes

Related closely to the variable arid zone species A. murrayana which is most readily distinguished by its 1-nerved phyllodes and mostly shorter racemes. There is a very superficial resemblance to the more southerly distributed A. dolichophylla which has phyllodes with a delicately acuminate, non-glanduliferous apex, appressed-hairy branchlets, shorter racemes and narrower pods.

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 J.Rogers

R.S.Cowan, B.R.Maslin