Acacia cupularis
Acacia cupularis, commonly known as the coastal umbrella bush, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south of continental Australia. It is an open to somewhat dense shrub with often dark reddish brown branchlets, linear, straight phyllodes, spherical heads of golden yellow flowers and more or less erect, crusty pods, appearing somewhat like a string of beads.
Description
Acacia cupularis is a glabrous, open shrub that typically grows to a height of and wide. The branchlets are often dark red-brown and covered with a white, powdery bloom. The phyllodes are asending to erect, straight, narrowly linear, long, wide and thick with two or three glands, the lower gland above the base of the phyllode. The flowers are borne in spherical heads in two or three racemes long on peduncles long, each head with 16 to 22 golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from July to December, and the pods are more or less erect, somewhat resembling a string of beads, up to long, wide, crusty and dark brown. The seeds are oblong, dull, light brown and long with an orange to scarlet aril.Taxonomy
Acacia cupularis was first formally described in 1923 by the botanist Karel Domin in Vestnik Kralovske Ceske Spolecnosti Nauk, Trida Matematiko-Prirodevedecke from specimens collected by Arthur Dorrien-Smith. The specific epithet means 'resembling a cup', referring to the shape of the pods.This species is a member of the Acacia bivenosa group of wattles and is similar in appearance to A. maxwellii, A. crassiuscula and A. anceps x A. nematophylla.