Acacia coriacea
Acacia coriacea, commonly known as wirewood, wiry wattle or desert oak, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to northern Western Australia. It is a spreading shrub or tree with thin bark, linear to very narrowly elliptic phyllodes, spherical heads of pale lemon yellow or cream-coloured flowers and twisted, curved or coiled pods resembling a string of beads. Indigenous Australians know the plant as Gunandru.
Description
Acacia coriacea is a spreading shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of up to and has thin, fibrous and fissured bark, the new growth covered with silky hairs. Its phyllodes are linear to very narrowly elliptic, long and wide and leathery with many closely parallel, fine veins. The flowers are borne in one or two spherical heads on a peduncle long, each head with 15 to 50 pale lemon yellow to cream-coloured flowers. Flowering time depends on subspecies, and the pods are twisted, openly curved or coiled and resemble a string of beads up to long and wide and leathery. The seeds are broadly elliptic, long, black and glossy with a large, bright orange aril.Taxonomy
Acacia coriacea was first formally described in 1825 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis.In 1993, Richard Cowan and Bruce Maslin described three subspecies of A. coriacea, and the names of two subspecies are recognised by the Australian Plant Census:Acacia coriacea DC. subsp. coriacea has mostly more or less erect, almost straight to very shallowly curved phyllodes wide, and flowers in June and July. Acacia coriacea subsp. pendens R.S.Cowan & Maslin has mostly pendulous, shallowly to strongly curved phyllodes wide, and flowers from March to August.
A third subspecies, Acacia coriacea subsp. sericophylla R.S.Cowan & Maslin is now recognised as a synonym of Acacia sericophylla F.Muell. and is found in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.