Acacia laricina


Acacia laricina is a shrub belonging to the genus Acacia and the subgenus Phyllodineae that is endemic to south western Australia.

Description

The shrub typically grows to a height of and can have a dense or spreading or domed habit. It has branchlets that can be covered in a fine, white powdery coating and are hairy at the extremities with linear to triangular stipules that are in length. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The evergreen phyllodes are crowded and appear to be continuous with the branchlets. They are straight to shallowly curved with a pentagonal cross-section and a length and a width of with five prominent nerves. It produces cream-yellow flowers from October to November. The simple inflorescences occur singly in the axils an have sperical flower-heads that contain 17 to 30 cream to pale yellow coloured flowers. Following flowering thinly coriaceous seed pods are formed. The red-brown pods have a length up to around and a width of and are curved and coarsely striated. The subshiny brown seeds inside have an oblong to oblong-elliptic shape with a length of and a conical terminal aril.

Taxonomy

There are two recognized varieties:
  • Acacia laricina var. crassifolia
  • ''Acacia laricina var. laricina''

Distribution

It is native to an area in the southern Wheatbelt, Great Southern and Goldfields-Esperance regions of Western Australia where it has an uneven distribution from around Nyabing in the north west to around Ravensthorpe in the south east. It is commonly situated on flats, stony ridges, on granite hills and among granite outcrops growing in loamy and gravelly soils often over laterite.