Acacia depressa
Acacia depressa, commonly known as echidna wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to a small area in the south-west of Western Australia. It is a dense, prostrate, prickly shrub with more or less glabrous, bipinnate leaves, spherical heads of light golden yellow flowers and narrowly oblong, firmly papery pods.
Description
Acacia depressa is a dense, prostrate, prickly, mat-forming shrub that typically grows to high and wide and has spiny branchlets with soft hairs pressed against the surface. The leaves are bipinnate and more or less glabrous with one pair of pinnae long, each pinna with 3 to 4 pairs of narrowly oblong to oblong pinnules long and about wide. The flowers are borne in a spherical head in axils on a peduncle long, each head in diameter with 12 to 15 light golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs in December and January, and the pods are narrowly oblong, long, about wide and more or less firmly papery.
Taxonomy
This species was first formally described in 1972 by Bruce Maslin, who gave it the name Acacia echinata in the journal Nuytsia from specimens collected " east of Kukerin" by Kenneth Newbey in 1964, but that name was illegitimate because it was used for a separate taxon named by George Don. In 1975, Maslin changed the name to Acacia depressa in a later edition of the same journal. The specific epithet means 'pressed down', referring to the low habit of this species.
Distribution and habitat
Echidna wattle is restricted to an area around Lake Grace in the mallee bioregion of Western Australia, where it usually grows on low rocky hills and rises in gravelly lateritic soils, in low shrubland or open heath.
Conservation status
Acacia depressa is listed as "vulnerable" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, and as "threatened" under the Western Australian Government Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016.