Acacia duriuscula
Acacia duriuscula is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a shrub or tree with glabrous branchlets, leathery, linear phyllodes, spherical heads of golden yellow flowers, and linear, firmly papery pods slightly curved and slightly raised over the seeds.
Description
Acacia duriuscula is a resinous shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of and has glabrous branchlets. Its phyllodes are ascending to erect, linear to linear-elliptic, straight to slightly curved, leathery, long and wide with the midrib slightly more evident than the other veins. The flowers are borne in one or two spherical heads in axils, on peduncles long, each head long with 19 to 26 golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from July to October, and the pods are linear, up to long, wide, slightly raised over the seeds, firmly papery and slightly curved. The seeds are oblong, long, glossy mottled brown to black with an aril on the end.
Taxonomy
Acacia duriuscula was first formally described in 1904 by William Vincent Fitzgerald in the Journal of the West Australian Natural History Society from specimens collected in the Coolgardie, [Western Australia|Coolgardie] district by Edmund Kelso. The specific epithet means 'somewhat hard or harsh'.
Distribution and habitat
This species of wattle grows in sand on plains and near granite outcrops in scattered locations from near Mullewa and Paynes Find to Tammin and Cardunia Rocks east of Coolgardie, and near Bromus south of Norseman, in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Great Victoria Desert, Murchison and Yalgoo bioregions of south-western Western Australia.
Conservation status
Acacia duriuscula is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.