Common Name

Club-leaf Wattle

Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Scattered occurrences in northern Australia (N of 22°S) from the Kimberley, W.A. through N.T. to Cape York area, Qld.

Description

Tree or sometimes shrub 3–10 m high. Bark normally rough and ±corky. Branchlets sometimes pendulous, brittle, sometimes pruinose, glabrous. Phyllodes oblanceolate to narrowly oblanceolate, occasionally ±linear, straight to shallowly recurved, 4–15 cm long, (5.5–) 10–35 mm wide, normally obtuse, green, yellowish green, grey-green or glaucous, glabrous, with 3 distant main nerves and numerous anastamoses forming a close, submerged, net-like reticulum in between. Inflorescences racemose, sometimes in panicles; raceme axes 3–17 cm long, glabrous; peduncles (3–) 4–12 (–14) mm long, 1–several per node; heads globular, 30–50-flowered, bright golden. Flowers 5-merous; sepals free. Pods narrowly oblong, flat, raised over seed, straight, to 8 cm long, 8–15 mm wide, chartaceous, glabrous. Seeds longitudinal, oblong-elliptic to subcircular, 5.5–6.5 mm long, dull, brown (depressed areole lighter), exarillate.

Habitat

Grows in sandy and lateritic soils in flat or undulating country, and in heavier soils close to creeks, mostly in open woodland.

Specimens

W.A.: NE of Bungle Bungle Outcamp, K.F.Kenneally 9220 (BRI, MEL, NSW, PERTH). N.T.: 17.5 km N of Larrimah, G.Chippendale NT3745 (NSW, PERTH); Kurundi Rd, 21 km E of Stuart Hwy, J.R.Maconochie 2372 (PERTH). Qld: ‘Jump Up’ on road between Atherton and Mareeba, 19 km SSE of Atherton, J.Moriarty 126 (PERTH).

Notes

Phyllode width is particularly variable and a few collections exist in which the width is rather consistently as atypically narrow as 6 mm, e.g. 1 km W of Willumbah Bore, N of Snake Ck, T.E.H.Aplin 5157 (CANB, PERTH).

Plants from the region of Kakadu Natl Park, N.T., with very pruinose branchlets may ultimately be shown as warranting formal recognition, e.g. 40 km from Mary River Ranger’s office on road to Koolpin Gorge, B.R.Maslin 7370 et al. (PERTH).

In N.T. A. hemignosta is part of a species complex that includes A. amanda and A. sp. El Sharana (N.B.Byrnes 1326).

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

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