Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Coastal areas (including islands of Recherche Archipelago) from Barker Inlet (50 km W of Esperance) E to near Israelite Bay, extending inland to Howick Hill, southern W.A.

Description

Shrub 0.5-1.5 m high. Branchlets ribbed, hirsutellous to hirsute, occasionally pilose or subglabrous; hairs tubercle-based. Stipules ±patent. Pinnae 2 (-3) pairs, 2-4 mm long (proximal pinnae), 5-15 mm long (distal pinnae); apex slightly or prominently recurved; rachis 3-9 mm long; pinnules 2 pairs (proximal pinnae), 3-8 pairs (distal pinnae), ±oblong to narrowly oblong, 3-8 mm long, 1.5-4 mm wide, flat or recurved, green, glabrous or subglabrous; gland on rachis 0-2 mm below pinnae, sessile, prominent. Inflorescences 2‑headed racemes, 1-3 per axil; raceme axes 0.5-2 mm long; peduncles 8-12 mm long, glabrous; heads globular, 11-26-flowered, pale yellow. Flowers 5-merous; sepals c. 3/4‑united; petals 1-nerved. Pods 1.5-3.5 cm long, 5-6 mm wide, normally glabrous. Seeds oblique, oblong to elliptic, 2.5-3 mm long.

Habitat

Grows on sand dunes and flats and lower granitic slopes, in heath and scrub.

Specimens

W.A.: Goose Is. Bay, 1803, R.Brown ‘4330’ (BM, E); Barker Inlet, E.M.Canning 7027 (CANB); 4 km from Esperance towards Albany, B.R.Maslin 5835 (AD, MEL, PERTH); Howick Hill, B.R.Maslin 6108 (PERTH); Middle Is., Recherche Archipelago, 22 Nov. 1950, J.H.Willis (MEL).

Notes

The complex nomenclatural history of A. nigricans, which is linked to that of A. leioderma, is discussed by B.R.Maslin, Nuytsia 1: 440 (1975).

A member of the ‘Acacia browniana group’ distinguished from the more westerly distributed A. browniana, A. leioderma and A. empelioclada by its reduced, binate racemes, see B.R.Maslin, Nuytsia 1: 440 (1975), for further discussion.

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 J.Reid

B.R.Maslin