Acacia eremaea

Acacia eremaea is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the west of Western Australia. It is a dense shrub or tree with ribbed, terete branchlets, erect, narrowly elliptic to elliptic phyllodes, spherical heads of golden yellow flowers, and linear, leathery pods strongly raised over the seeds.

Description

Acacia eremaea is a dense shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of and has rough, deeply fissured bark and terete, ribbed branchlets. Its phyllodes are erect, narrowly elliptic to elliptic, straight to shallowly curved, sharply pointed, long and wide. There are closely parallel veins, of which about three are typically slightly raised. The flowers are borne in two to four spherical heads in axils on hairy peduncles long. Each head is in diameter with 54 to 85 golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from July to October and the pods are leathery, linear, straight to slightly curved, up to long, wide and strongly raised over the seeds. The seeds are egg-shaped, long, glossy brown, the aril not prominent.

Taxonomy

Acacia eremaea was first formally described by the botanist Cecil Rollo Payton Andrews in the Journal of the West Australian Natural History Society from specimens he collected near Cue in 1903. The specific epithet means 'lonely' or 'solitary', hence 'found in a desert or arid region'.

Distribution and habitat

This species of wattle grows on clay loam flats, often near salt lakes in tall shrubland and low woodland from around Boolardy Station and Cue towards Wongan Hills, in the Avon Wheatbelt, Geraldton Sandplains, Murchison and Yalgoo bioregions in the west of Western Australia.

Conservation status

Acacia eremaea is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.