Acacia brownii
Acacia brownii, commonly known as heath wattle or prickly Moses, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to eastern continental Australia. It is an erect or spreading shrub with more or less rigid, straight, sharply-pointed phyllodes, bright yellow flowers arranged in spherical heads and curved, flat, leathery pods.
Description
Acacia brownii is an erect or spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of and has glabrous to sparsely hairy branchlets. Its phyllodes are more or less rigid, straight, round or four-angled in cross section, sharply-pointed long and up to about wide with awl-shaped stipules at the base and a pronounced mid-rib. The flowers are arranged in a spherical head in axils on a peduncle long. Each head is in diameter with 12 to 30 bright yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from July to November, and the pods are more or less curved, flat and leathery, long and wide.This wattle is similar to A. ulicifolia, but is a sprawling, semi-prostrate shrub less than high, with linear phyllodes long with a pronounced midrib, the stipules often falling off as the phyllodes mature, and bright golden to deep golden flowers.
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by Robert Brown in 1813 as Acacia acicularis, in Hortus Kewensis but the name was illegitimate. In 1817 Poiret published Mimosa brownei as a replacement name and in 1821 Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel transferred Poiret's Mimosa brownei to Acacia as A. brownii in Nomenclator Botanicus.The specific epithet honours honours Robert Brown.