Acacia comans
Acacia comans is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to an area along the west coast Western Australia. It is a spreading shrub with hairy branchlets, sessile, widely elliptic to oblong phyllodes, usually spherical heads of yellow flowers, and linear leathery pods.
Description
Acacia comans is a spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of and has terete, slightly ribbed branchlets that are densely covered with straight, spreading hairs. Its phyllodes are sessile, widely elliptic to oblong, long, wide and sharply pointed with three or four main veins and a gland above the base of the phyllodes. There are needle-shaped stipules at the base of the phyllodes. The flowers are borne in one or two spherical heads in axils on peduncles long, each head in diameter with 25 to 36 yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from June to September and the pods are linear, leathery, up to long and wide and raised over the seeds. The seeds are mottled brown, oval to more or less circular, about long with a helmet-shaped aril.
Taxonomy
Acacia comans was first formally described in 1904 by William Vincent Fitzgerald in the Journal of the West Australian Natural History Society from specimens he collected near Arrino in 1903. The specific epithet means 'hairy'.
Distribution
This species of wattle occurs from near Geraldton in the north to around Coorow in the south where it is grows on sandplains in sandy soils in the Avon Wheatbelt, Geraldton Sandplains and Yalgoo bioregions in the west of Western Australia.
"Acacia comans" is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.