Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Discontinuous, occurring in the Chiddarcooping Nature Reserve and 200 km S near Hyden, south-western W.A.

Description

Shrub 0.5–2 m high, bushy, rounded or obconical. Branchlets sericeous between resin-ribs at extremities. Phyllodes patent to ascending, straight to very shallowly incurved, terete, 2.5–6 cm long, 0.5–0.7 mm diam., slender, green, glabrous or sparsely appressed-hairy in shallow narrow furrows between the nerves, resinous (at least when young); nerves 8, broad, ±flat-topped, not or scarcely raised. Inflorescences simple, mostly solitary; heads sessile, globular to subglobular, 4.5–6 mm diam., 12–20-flowered, golden. Flowers 4-merous; sepals 3/4-united. Pods erect, linear, slightly raised over and slightly constricted between seeds, straight to shallowly curved, to 5 cm long, 1–2 mm wide, thinly coriaceous, minutely appressed-puberulous on lateral faces, ±resinous; margins wide. Seeds longitudinal, elliptic, 2–2.5 mm long, glossy, mottled; aril terminal, bluntly conical, nearly as long as seed, white.

Habitat

Grows commonly in association with granite, on or near outcrops, in Melaleuca shrubland with Eucalyptus stowardii and Casuarina spp., also in gravelly loam in low heath.

Specimens

W.A.: Lake Hurlstone Nature Reserve, 9 km NW of Holt Rock on road to Hyden, B.R.Maslin 6485 (CANB, K, PERTH); central W side of Chiddarcooping Hill Reserve, A.S.Weston 14388 (MEL, PERTH).

Notes

Most closely related to A. arcuatilis. Also close to A. tratmaniana which has quadrangular, commonly longer, phyllodes. The short phyllode variant of A. tratmaniana, however, could be confused with A. cracentis and a careful inspection of the phyllode nerves (4 in A. tratmaniana) and shape in cross-section is needed to confidently distinguish them.

FOA Reference

Data derived from Flora of Australia Volumes 11A (2001), 11B (2001) and 12 (1998), products of ABRS, ©Commonwealth of Australia

Author

R.S.Cowan, B.R.Maslin