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| WattleWeb |
Black Wattle, Green Wattle
The type was collected by E.A. Mearns from a cultivated specimen in East Africa.
Habit: a tall shrub to tree with smooth, greenish to blackish bark, to c. 15 m tall. Branchlets: somewhat angular, densely pubescent.
Leaves: olive to dark green; petiole 10--50) mm long, pubescent with 1 to several glands; rachis 40--150 mm long, pubescent with jugary and usually interjugary glands; pinnae 8--25 pairs, 20--60 mm long; pinnules 16--70 pairs, linear oblong, ± glabrous above, pubescent below or along margins, 1--5 mm long, 0.5--0.8 mm wide, straight, apex obtuse to subacute, midvein obscure. Young leaves golden-yellow to yellow-green.
Inflorescence: 20--40 pale yellow flowers in globular heads on thick, golden pubescent peduncles 5--8 mm long in terminal and axillary racemes and panicles; rachis pubescent. Flowers: 5-merous; calyx lobes short, acute, glabrous; petals glabrous; ovary puberulous.
Legume: linear, 30--180 mm long, 4--9 mm wide, dark coloured, ± finely pubescent; seeds longitudinal in pod, funicle short, obliquely arilate.
Flowering period: early summer.
Distribution: common from north-eastern Tasmania and across most of southern Victoria and into southern New South Wales on the tablelands and coast to the north of Sydney; also South Australia. It has become naturalised between Wyong and Swansea, New South Wales, where it appears to have become established from roadside rehabilation plantings. Occurs in eucalypt open-forests and woodlands, mostly on dry, shallow, heavy soils.
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Written and compiled by Terry Tame,
Phillip Kodela, Barry Conn, Ken Hill © Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney - June 2001 [Copyright and disclaimer notice] |