Acacia crombiei


Acacia crombiei, commonly known as pink gidgee, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to Queensland Australia. It is a tree with twisted, glabrous branchlets and narrowly linear, leathery phyllodes, flowers in spherical heads and narrowly oblong firmly papery to thinly leathery pods.

Description

Acacia crombiei is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to and has twisted, glabrous branchlets. The phyllodes are narrowly linear, straight to slightly curved, mostly long, wide, narrowed at both ends and leathery with the midrib and edge veins prominent. There is an oblong to more or less linear gland long, up to above the base of the phyllode. The flowers are borne in up to four spherical heads on peduncles long. Flowering has been recorded in April, May, August and October and the pods are narrowly oblong, firmly papery to thinly leathery, up to long and wide with knob-like protuberances along the midline. The seeds are oblong to widely elliptic, dark brown and slightly shiny, long and wide.
This species of wattle is reported to have a habit that is similar in appearance to Acacia cana or A. cambagei.

Taxonomy

Acacia crombiei was first formally described in 1942 by Cyril Tenison White in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland from specimens collected near Longreach by "J. Crombie" in 1940. The specific epithet honours the collector of the type specimens.

Distribution and habitat

This species of wattle grows in small, isolated populations around the small town of Muttaburra to around Elmore Station north of Richmond in central Queensland. It has been collected as far south as around Winton north over a distance of to around Greenvale. The species occurs in an area of around with 15 sub-populations with an estimated total population of about 20,000 individual plants. It grows in open Acacia scrub in open woodland, open forest and dry rainforest, ofen with Acacia cambagei in clay, sandy clay, loam, stony sand and gravelly soils on plains and hills.

Conservation status

Acacia crombiei is listed as vulnerable under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.