Common Name

Baxter’s Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Disjunct in south-western W.A. with the main occurrence from Ongerup to Albany, infrequent further N between Walebing and Quairading.

Description

Shrub 0.3–0.6 m high. Branchlets rigid, striate-ribbed, sometimes pruinose, glabrous. Stipules 1–3 mm long, ±spinose. Phyllodes sessile, variable, narrowly linear to inequilaterally narrowly oblong-elliptic, pentagonal-terete when narrow, (8–) 10–25 mm long, normally 1–4 mm wide, with oblique pungent apex, thick, rigid, subglaucous (? or green), glabrous, 5-nerved, with the 2-nerved adaxial margin thick and nerve-like; midrib prominent. Inflorescences simple, 1 per axil; peduncles 3–10 (-15) mm long, stout, glabrous; heads globular, 30–50-flowered, golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals ±free; petals nerveless. Pods curved, terete to subterete, to 6.5 cm long, 3.5–5 mm wide, subwoody, dark red-brown, glabrous. Seeds longitudinal, oblong, 5–6 mm long, grey-brown; aril terminal, ±conical, small.

Phenology

Flowers during most months of the year.

Habitat

Grows in often lateritic or granitic sand or loam, in Eucalyptus woodland or open mallee heath.

Specimens

W.A.: McMahon’s property, 6 km S of Mt Barker, 2 Feb. 1971, K.F.Kenneally s.n. (PERTH); 17.6 km W of Quairading on the road to York, B.R.Maslin 488 (PERTH); 19.2 km S of Ongerup, K.Newbey 3485 (PERTH).

Notes

Branchlets on northern populations more pruinose than elsewhere.

Erroneously described as A. bagsteri, fide G.Bentham, Fl. Austral. 2: 328 (1864).

Related to A. andrewsii and seemingly also Acacia sp. Kalannie North (B.R.Maslin 7702); phyllodes similar to A. unifissilis.

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