Acacia galioides
Acacia galioides is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to northern Australia. It is a spreading shrub with whorls of phyllodes, spherical heads of yellow flowers and linear pods.
Description
Acacia galioides is a spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and sometimes has hairy, occasionally glaucous branchlets. The phyllodes are arranged in whorls of five to nine, and are slightly flattened, straight or slightly curved, long and wide with a short point on the end. The phyllodes have an impressed vein on the upper side, and are obscurely ribbed on the lower surface. The flowers are borne in spherical heads on a peduncle long, each head with 10 to 25 yellow flowers. The pods are linear, straight to curved, up to long, wide and glabrous, with a white, powdery bloom. The seeds are long.
Taxonomy
Acacia galioides was first formally described in 1842 by George Bentham in Hooker's London Journal of Botany from specimens collected by Franz Bauer. The specific epithet means 'Galium-like'.
Distribution and habitat
This species of wattle grows in sandy and shallow rocky soils in the Central Kimberley, Ord Victoria Plain and Victoria Bonaparte bioregions of northern Western Australia, in the central north of the Northern Territory and in north-western Queensland as far as Clermont and Herberton in the eastern highlands of Queensland.
Conservation status
Acacia galioides is listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, of "least concern" under the Northern Territory Government Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act and the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.