Acacia eremophila


Acacia eremophila is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the southern inland of Western Australia. It is a dense, rounded or inverted cone-shaped shrub with hairy branchlets, straight, terete, rigid phyllodes, spherical heads of light, golden yellow flowers, and linear, thinly crust-like pods raised over and more or less constricted between the seeds.

Description

Acacia eremophila is a dense, rounded to inverted cone-shaped shrub that typically grows to a height of high and has hairy branchlets. Its phyllodes are straight, terete, long and in diameter with about 10 closely parallel veins. The flowers are borne in two spherical heads in axils on a peduncle long, each head in diameter with 10 to 25 light golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from July to October, and the pods are linear, thinly crust-like, long, wide, straight or wavy, and raised over and more or less constricted between the seeds. The seeds are elliptic to oblong, long and dark brown with an aril on the end.

Taxonomy

Acacia eremophila was first formally described in 1912 by William Vincent Fitzgerald in the Journal of Botany, British and Foreign from specimens collected by Max Koch near Cowcowing. The specific epithet means 'lonely-' or 'solitary-loving'.
This species of wattle closely resembles Acacia densiflora.
In 1927, Joseph Maiden and William Blakely described two varieties of A. eremophila, in the Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:
  • Acacia eremophila W.Fitzg. var. eremophila has phyllodes mostly long and straight pods that are glabrous or with red resin-hairs.
  • Acacia eremophila var. variabilis Maiden & Blakely has phyllodes long, and wavy pods with soft hairs pressed against the surface.

Distribution and habitat

Acacia eremophila grows in sandy soils with clay, loam and gravel on sandplains, sandy ridges and flats, and is widely distributed in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains, Great Victoria Desert, Mallee, Murchison and Nullarbor bioregions of Western Australia. The variety variabilis is known only from Kalannie, Comet Vale, Zanthus and Balladonia.

Conservation status

Acacia eremophila var. eremophila is listed as "not threatened", but var. variabilis is listed as "Priority Three" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions meaning that it is poorly known and known from only a few locations but is not under imminent threat.