Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Known only from within a 50 km radius of Hyden, south-western W.A.

Description

Diffuse shrub 0.5–2 m high. Branchlets puberulous. Young branchlets, phyllodes and often the peduncles puncticulate by brown to black circular resin papillae. Stipule bases commonly indurate, persisting as blunt tooth-like projections. Phyllodes subsessile, narrowly elliptic to narrowly oblong-elliptic, 1–3 (–4.5) cm long, 2–5 mm wide, l:w = 4–10, flat or undulate, obtuse to acute, mucronulate, not easily separated from branchlets, dark green, with margins and midribs verruculose by persistent tubercle-bases of hairs, prominently 1-nerved per face; lateral nerves few, obscure; gland 3–6 mm above base, sometimes absent. Inflorescences 2–5-headed racemes; racemes axes 4–7 mm long, sometimes growing out and resulting in single axillary heads; peduncles 6–20 mm long, slender, glabrous to sparsely puberulous, with a semi-persistent bract near or above the middle; heads globular to obloid, 5.5–7 mm long, 4–5.5 mm diam., 30–60-flowered, golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals mostly free. Pods and seeds not seen.

Habitat

Grows on or in association with granite outcrops.

Specimens

W.A.: Camel Peaks, due N of Hyden, K.Wallace 1819 (PERTH).

Notes

Most closely allied to A. dentifera and A. graniticola which have longer, non-undulate phyllodes and heads in axillary twos or threes or in long racemes with the initiation of the growing-out phase occurring during anthesis.

Phyllodes on plants around Hyden are flat or with margins only slightly undulate whereas those at Mt Vernon have strongly undulate margins. These latter collections were made from a regrowth population following fire.

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