Acacia formidabilis
Acacia formidabilis is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a diffuse, spreading subshrub with softly hairy branchlets, narrowly elliptic or oblong, sharply pointed, leathery phyllodes, spherical heads of pale to deep golden yellow flowers and flat, straight, papery pods.
Description
Acacia formidabilis is a diffuse, spreading, sharply pointed subshrub that typically grows to a height of and has branchlets covered with soft hairs. It has rigid, sharply pointed, narrowly elliptic or oblong phyllodes long, wide and leathery, glaucous or pale green with many fine, closely parallel veins. There are curved, spiny stipules long at the base of the phyllodes. The flowers are borne in two spherical heads in axils on a peduncle long, each head in diameter with 31 to 52 pale golden to deep golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from August to September, and the pods are flat, straight, up to long and wide, papery, light brown and glabrous. The seeds are egg-shaped, about long, dull, mottled brown and lack an aril.
Taxonomy
Acacia formidabilis was first formally described in 1999 by Richard Sumner Cowan and Bruce Maslin in the journal Nuytsia from an unpublished manuscript by Charles Gardner. The type specimen was collected north-west of Southern Cross towards Bullfinch in 1971. The specific epithet was chosen by Charles Gardner and means 'causing fear' or 'terrible', referring to the spiny stipules and sharply pointed phyllodes.
Distribution
This species of wattle grows on undulating plains and hillsides in sandy soils in scattered locations between Paynes Find and Perenjori and south-east to Southern Cross usually in tall open shrubland.
Conservation status
Acacia formidabilisis listed as "Priority Three" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife, meaning that it is poorly known and known from only a few locations but is not under imminent threat.