Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Restricted to tropical Australia in the northern N.T. and north-western W.A. There is also a specimen collected by W.S.Campbell on Thursday Is., Qld (NSW), but L.Pedley, Proc. Roy. Soc. Queensland 74: 59 (1964), has queried this locality.

Description

Shrub or tree to 4 m high. Bark slightly fibrous, brown or grey. Branchlets slightly angular, tomentose, ribbed. Phyllodes obliquely narrowly elliptic to elliptic, 7–19.5 cm long, 25–70, papery to slightly coriaceous, with 2–4 prominent main nerves concurrent with each other and abaxial margin near base (nerve nearest abaxial margin terminating towards apex); minor nerves closely reticulate, with interstices ±square with free nerve-endings; gland prominent, basal. Spikes 3–7 cm long, golden. Flowers 5-merous; calyx 0.7–0.8 mm long, dissected to 1/5–1/3, villous; corolla 2–2.4 mm long, dissected to 1/2, villous; ovary densely villous. Pods linear, coiled in masses, to 7 cm long, 4–7 mm wide, tomentose. Seeds longitudinal, ±oblong, 3.9–4.5 mm long, black; areole ±oblong, open or almost so.

Phenology

Flowers June & July.

Habitat

Acacia pellita occurs along creek banks in sandy soil in eucalypt woodland usually in shady areas on sandstone or laterite.

Notes

There is very little variation in this species except in the length and breadth of the phyllodes. It is allied to A. holosericea, from which it differs in the ribbed, but only slightly angular branchlets, in the often much wider phyllodes, in the prominent, raised, round, basal gland, and tightly coiled, tomentose pods. There are also similarities to A. humifusa, especially the type of basal gland and the phyllode vestiture and strongly reticulate nerves with free nerve-endings in the interstices.

FOA Reference

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

Author

Dr M.D.Tindale and Dr P.G.Kodela with the assistance of M.Bedward, S.J.Davies, C.Herscovitch, D.A.Keith and/or D.A.Morrison

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