Acacia balsamea
Acacia balsamea, commonly known as balsam wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to inland areas of Western Australia. It is a bushy, rounded or inverted cone-shaped shrub with flat, linear phyllodes that are circular in cross section, more or less spherical or oblong heads of flowers, and leathery to somewhat woody pods up to long.
Description
Acacia balsamea is a bushy, rounded or inverted cone-shaped shrub that typically grows to a height of and has yellow, ribbed branchlets. Its phyllodes are erect, flat, linear, circular in cross section long and wide, sometimes smelling of Friars' balsam when crushed. The flowers are borne in one or two more or less spherical to oblong heads in axils on a peduncle long, each head with about 21 flowers. Flowering occurs in August and September, and the pods are pendulous, leathery to somewhat woody, resembling a string of beads long and wide. The seeds are dull brown and about long.
Taxonomy
Acacia balsamea was first formally described in 1999 by the botanists Richard Sumner Cowan and Bruce Maslin in the journal Nuytsia from specimens collected by Maslin on Mount William Lambert, east of Wiluna in 1984. The specific epithet refers to the odour of fresh foliage, reminiscent of balsam fir.
Distribution and habitat
Balsam wattle is widely distributed in arid central Western Australia between Nullagine, the south-east part of the Great Sandy Desert, Leinster Downs and the Gibson Desert. It grows in rocky granite soils among stony hills in tall open shrubland and is often associated with Acacia aneura.