Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Occurs in W.A. from Wyalkatchem S to near Beverley and Corrigin, E to Queen Victoria Rock (45 km due SSW of Coolgardie); one flowering collection from between Wubin and Paynes Find, c. 150 km N of Wyalkatchem.

Description

Often rounded rather dense shrub 0.4–2 m high. Branchlets minutely woolly-tomentulose with crisped hairs; indumentum especially evident on new shoots. Phyllodes often ±patent and slightly undulate, commonly slightly asymmetric, ovate, elliptic or obovate, 1–2.5 cm long, 5–12 mm wide, l:w = 1–4, acute to obtuse, sometimes obliquely truncate, with slightly excentric mucro, coriaceous, green, sometimes subglaucous, minutely woolly-tomentulose when young, glabrous or subglabrous at maturity, 1-nerved per face, sometimes indistinctly and imperfectly 2-nerved; lateral nerves absent or very obscure; gland near or above middle of phyllode, sometimes slightly raised above margin; rarely a few phyllodes with 2 glands. Inflorescences simple, mostly 2 per axil; peduncles 3–10 mm long, glabrous; heads globular, 4–5 mm diam., 15–24-flowered, mid-golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals free. Pods twisted to spirally coiled, terete, to c. 1 cm long (unexpanded), 2.5–3 mm wide, thinly crustaceous, woolly-tomentose, rarely glabrous. Seeds longitudinal, elliptic, 2–2.5 mm long, shiny, brown; aril galeiform, bright orange.

Habitat

Grows in clayey sand, sandy clay loam and loam, in open eucalypt woodland, mallee woodland and Casuarina /Melaleuca uncinata shrubland with scattered Eucalyptus longicornis.

Specimens

W.A.: 210 m.p. [mile post] between Wubin and Paynes Find, J.S.Beard 2595 (PERTH); Wyalkatchem, C.A.Gardner 173 (PERTH); 29 km NW of Kulin towards Corrigin, B.R.Maslin 4373 (PERTH); 3.5 km N of Queen Victoria Rock on the road to Coolgardie, B.R.Maslin 5407 (BRI, K, MEL, MO, NSW, PERTH).

Notes

Regarded by A.J.Ewart et al., Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria 22: 7 (1909), as conspecific with the closely allied A. merrallii which has glabrous to subglabrous pods and thicker phyllodes with gland not raised and nearer the pulvinus. Additionally, the branchlet hairs on A. sericocarpa are clearly crisped (normally straight to slightly curved on A. merrallii) and the transition from the densely tomentulose new shoots to ±glabrous mature foliage is more abrupt in A. sericocarpa than in A. merrallii. Also related to A. ligustrina which has ±straight, appressed to subappressed branchlet hairs and generally more elongate phyllodes with often more numerous glands.

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

B.R.Maslin