Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Restricted to between Jurien Bay and Eneabba, south-western W.A.

Description

Sprawling prostrate multistemmed shrub with rather slender branches, to 1 m long. Branchlets green, finely yellow-ribbed, glabrous, sometimes hirsutellous. Phyllodes sessile, strongly retrorse, sometimes some patent, linear, straight to shallowly curved, pentagonal-terete to flat, 10–25 mm long, 1–2 mm wide, pungent, green, glabrous, 5-nerved, the 2‑nerved adaxial margin 0.3–0.5 mm wide and ±nerve-like when dry; midrib prominent. Inflorescences 1-headed rudimentary racemes with axes < 0.5 mm long; peduncles 3–5 mm long, glabrous; basal bracts persistent; heads globular, 16–24-flowered, light golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals c. 2/3-united. Pods submoniliform, to 6 cm long, 3.5–4.5 mm wide, firmly chartaceous, dark brown, glabrous. Seeds longitudinal, oblong to elliptic, c. 4 mm long, blackish except for yellowish centre; aril clavate.

Habitat

Grows in gravelly sand in low open heath or low open woodland.

Specimens

W.A.: c. 10 km N of Coorow-Green Head road towards Eneabba, 2 Sept. 1979, C.Chapman s.n. (MEL, PERTH); c. 19 km E of Jurien Bay, B.R.Maslin 2625 (PERTH).

Notes

Inflorescence morphology suggests affinities to the ‘A. pravifolia group’, but the venation of the phyllodes is very different from other members of that group. Superficially similar to A. declinata.

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 & J.Rogers