Common Name

Wait-a-while, Bohemia

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Extending from Minilya Stn E to near Mundiwindi and S to near Ballythanna Hill and near Meekatharra, W.A.

Description

Bushy shrub or ±gnarled tree 3–7 m high. Branchlets glabrous or subglabrous. Stipules spinose, absent from some nodes, shallowly recurved, 2–4 mm long. Phyllodes mostly narrowly oblong-oblanceolate to linear, (2–) 3–6 (–7.5) cm long, 2–5 mm wide, narrowed at base, pungent, glabrous to subglabrous; midrib prominent; lateral nerves obscure; gland 0–5 mm above pulvinus, with an additional gland often at base of cusp. Inflorescences simple, (1) 2 per axil, initiated synchronously with phyllodes on new shoots; peduncles 15–20 mm long, glabrous or hirtellous; heads globular, 23–32-flowered, pale yellow. Flowers 5-merous; sepals free to 1/2-united. Pods narrowly oblong, to 9 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, chartaceous, finely transversely reticulate, glabrous. Seeds transverse to oblique, widely elliptic to widely ovate, 6–7.5 mm long, dull, brown, exarillate; funicle strap-like.

Phenology

Flowers mainly Oct.–Dec. but sometimes in other months.

Habitat

Favours open floodplain areas in clay or loam.

Specimens

W.A.: c. 5 km S of Yaringa on North West Coastal Hwy, A.M.Ashby 4491 (CANB, K, MEL, PERTH); 33 km along road from Mundiwindi to Mount Newman, H.Demarz 611 (PERTH); Byro Stn, 10 km W of Ballythanna Hill on the track to North West Coastal Hwy, B.R.Maslin 5167 (PERTH).

Notes

Perhaps most closely allied to A. pickardii but distinguished from this species, and from other members of the ‘A. victoriae group’, by its pungent, flat phyllodes.

FOA Reference

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

Author

Minor edits by B.R.Maslin & J.Rogers

B.R.Maslin