Acacia eremophiloides


Acacia eremophiloides is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to a restricted part of Queensland, Australia. It is a glabrous shrub with slender branchlets, linear phyllodes, heads of golden yellow flowers, and linear, cinnamon brown pods.

Description

Acacia eremophiloides is a resinous, glabrous shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has slender branchlets. Its phyllodes are linear, long, wide and leathery, with the midrib and margins quite prominent. The flowers are borne in one or two spherical heads in axils on a peduncle long, each head with about 30 golden yellow flowers. Flowering has been recorded in August and September, and the pods are linear, convex over the seeds, up to long, wide and cinnamon brown. The seeds are long with an aril.

Taxonomy

Acacia eremophiloides was first formally described in 1986 by Leslie Pedley and Paul Irwin Forster in the journal Austrobaileya from specimens collected by Forster. The specific epithet alludes "to the superficial similarity of small individuals to species of Eremophila".

Distribution and habitat

This species of wattle grows on a granite outcrop at an altitude of and is geographically restricted to an area of in south-eastern Queensland, south of Mundubbera. The population has a range of around and is composed of around 5,000 plants.

Conservation status

Acacia eremophiloides is listed as "vulnerable" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act.