Acacia leptoloba

Acacia leptoloba, also known as Irvinebank wattle, is a shrub of the genus Acacia and the subgenus Plurinerves that is endemic to an area of north eastern Australia.

Description

The shrub or small tree typically grows to a height of and has a spreading habit with glabrous branchlets that are sometimes covered in a fine white powdery coating. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The glabrous, leathery and evergreen phyllodes have an inequilaterally narrowly elliptic outline and are sickle shaped with a length of and a width of and have three main longitudinal nerves. It blooms between December and April producing inflorescences in axillary racemes and occasionally on terminal panicles which have spherical flower-heads that have a diameter of about and contain 40 to 75 white coloured flowers.

Taxonomy

The species was first formally described by the botanist Leslie Pedley in 1978 as part of the work A revision of Acacia Mill. in Queensland, Part 1 as published in the journal Austrobaileya. It was reclassified by Pedley in 1987 as Racosperma leptolobum then returned to genus Acacia in 2001.

Distribution

It has a scattered distribution over the Cape York Peninsula of Far North Queensland down to around Herberton in the south where it is commonly situated on hills and along creeks growing in sandy soils. The plant is quite common around the Irvinebank area.