Acacia farinosa
Acacia farinosa, commonly known as mealy wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is a rounded shrub with terete, glabrous branchlets, oblanceolate to linear phyllodes, spherical heads of golden yellow flowers and linear, curved and twisted, crusty pods.
Description
Acacia farinosa is a rounded shrub that typically grows to a height of and has glabrous, terete branchlets that have soft hairs pressed against the surface. Its phyllodes are ascending, oblanceolate to linear, mostly long, wide, rigid, thick and more or less fleshy. There is a gland above the base of the phyllode. The flowers are borne in spherical heads on a peduncle long, each head in diameter with seven to seventeen golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from July to November, and the pods are linear, crusty, rigid, curved and twisted, up to long, wide and glabrous. The seeds are elliptic, long and black with a small aril on the end.
Taxonomy
Acacia farinosa was first formally described in 1838 by English botanist John Lindley from material collected on Thomas Mitchell's expedition near Lake Charm, Victoria in 1836 and was published in Mitchell's Three Expeditions into the interior of Eastern Australia. The specific epithet means 'covered with mealiness' or 'powdery', referring to the young stems and peduncles.
Distribution and habitat
Mealy wattle mostly grows in sand or loam in shrubland and woodland, often with lerp mallee, in the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas, on Kangaroo Island and south-eastern South Australia, and extending to western Victoria between Edenhope and Swan Hill.
Use in horticulture
This species may be used as a groundcover in coastal areas.