Acacia chrysella


Acacia chrysella is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a shrub with many spreading branches, usually linear phyllodes, spherical heads of light golden yellow flowers and linear, thinly crust-like pods.

Description

Acacia chrysella is a dense, bushy, rounded shrub with many branches and that typically grows to a height of up to. Its branches and phyllodes are glabrous. The phyllodes are usually linear, occasionally narrowly lance-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, mostly long and wide and sometimes curved inwards. The flowers are borne in 3 to 10 spherical heads in racemes long on peduncles long, each head in diameter with 15 to 25 light golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from December to August, and the pods are linear, variably constricted between the seeds, thinly crust-like and glabrous, up to long and wide. The seeds are oblong or elliptic, long with a thick aril.

Taxonomy

Acacia chrysella was first formally described in 1928 by the botanists Joseph Maiden and William Blakely in the Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia from specimens growing on salmon land and gimlet land from "Merredin State Farm, by Frederick Stoward in 1917. The specific epithet means 'little golden', referring to the tiny golden hairs on the flowers.
Acacia chrysella belongs to the Acacia microbotrya group and is most closely related to A. aestivalis, A. brumalis, A. chamaeleon and A. harveyi.

Distribution

This species of wattle is found from near Cleary, south to Pingrup and east to near Coolgardie and Scaddan where it grows in sandy, loam or clay soils in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains, Mallee and Yalgoo bioregions of south-western Western Australia.

Conservation status

Acacia chrysella is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.