Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

A seemingly uncommon entity. Most specimens are from the Cue – Paynes Find – Sandstone area, but one is from “Leonora – Meekatharra”. Acacia craspedocarpa x ramulosa has been recorded as sympatric with both putative parents in one population, namely, 69 km S of Mt Magnet – Leinster road on the Sandstone – Paynes Find road (A. craspedocarpa – B.R. Maslin & J.E. Reid BRM 9731; A. craspedocarpa x ramulosa – B.R. Maslin & J.E. Reid BRM 9734; A. ramulosa not collected) and with only A. ramulosa in another population in the same general region, namely, Paynes Find – Sandstone road, c. 5 km E of Great Northern Highway (A. ramulosa var. ramulosa – B.R. Maslin 9903 and A. craspedocarpa x ramulosa – B.R. Maslin 9902)

Description

Branchlet ribs not prominent, absent with age. New shoots resinous and dark-coloured, covered by a dense layer of glandular hairlets. Phyllodes narrowly elliptic, 4–7 cm long, normally 3–5 mm wide, normally straight to shallowly incurved, nerves numerous and parallel, rarely a few anastomoses on some phyllodes; discrete resinous marginal nerve absent or very poorly developed. Pods oblong to narrowly oblong, (2–) 3–8 cm long, 7–12 (–15) mm wide, coriaceous, flat to compressed, brown or red-brown, obscurely narrowly winged or ±rimmed, longitudinally anastomosing nerves evident with a dense indumentum of silvery white appressed hairs in-between (hairs often embedded in resin and difficult to see). Seeds large (5.5–7 (–8.5) x 4–5 mm).

Specimens

49 km due E of Paynes Find on Sandstone/Paynes Find road, just before Warne River crossing, R. Fairman 347 (PERTH); 10 km ESE of Mount Magnet, Boogardie Station ‘Mullitor paddock’, B.R. Maslin, J. Miller, L. Sweedman & B. Cole BRM 7897 (PERTH).

Notes

The pods have the general facies of A. ramulosa except that they are obviously flattened and often narrowly winged, and the phyllodes narrowly elliptic. The relationship to A. craspedocarpa is very speculative and is based on the observation that the phyllodes occasionally possess a few anastomosing nerves (anastomoses numerous in A. craspedocarpa). It is quite possible that there are discordant elements included within the circumscription of this putative hybrid (e.g. field observations suggest that in some cases perhaps A. aptaneura is the second parent, e.g. B.R. Maslin 8978 (collected from c. 96 km E of Sandstone).

This putative hybrid is noted by B.R.Maslin & J.E.Reid, Nuytsia 22: 205 (2012) and is shown in Figure 33A t (page 204) in that work.

FOA Reference

Flora of Australia Project

Author

B.R.Maslin