Common Name

Bes’ Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Occurs in the Ravensthorpe Ra., south western W.A. Known from only a very few populations.

Description

Rounded or obconicoften bushy, resinous shrub 1–3 m tall. Bark stringy and fibrous, grey externally but the new bark beneath reddish brown. Branchlets smooth or tuberculate, glabrous or ±sparsely appressed hairy. Phyllodes linear, gradually narrowed towards base, mostly shallowly incurved, erect, thinly coriaceous, acute and mucronate, 40–85 mm long, 2–3 (–3.5) mm wide, glabrous; longitudinal nerves 3–5, ±not raised, widely spaced, central nerve normally yellow and more evident than flanking brownish nerves, lateral nerves absent or few; gland (0.5–) 1–3 mm above pulvinus. Inflorescences 2-headed racemes; raceme axes (1–) 2–4 (–6) mm long; peduncles 5–8 mm long, normally glabrous; heads globular, 15–22-flowered, yellow; bracteoles 0.8–1 mm long, laminae acute to short-acuminate. Flowers 5-merous; sepals ±free and glabrous; petals ±glabrous. Pods narrowly oblong, 10–30 mm long, 3.5–5 mm wide, thinly coriaceous-crustaceous, straight to variously curved or sigmoid, often ±undulate, sparsely to densely short-pilose. Seeds longitudinal, normally obloid, 2.8–3.5 mm long; aril white.

Phenology

Flowers: Oct.; mature pods Dec.

Habitat

Grows in undulating country along drainage lines within rocky terrain in loamy clay or red clay over granite or quartz diorite. Occurs in Mallee scrub dominated by various species Eucalyptus over a rather dense understory shrub stratum dominated by species of Melaleuca.

Notes

Closest relative unknown but seems to have affinities with members of the A. flavipila group. See B.R.Maslin, Nuytsia for discussion. The first collection of the species was L. Diels 4890 which was cited in L.Diels & E.Pritzel, Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 35: 304 (1904), under A. heteroneura (presumably an error for A. heteroclita).

Conservation

Acacia besleyi is listed as Priority One under Department of Parks and Wildlife Conservation Codes for Western Australian Flora.

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