Acacia manipularis

Acacia manipularis is a shrub of the genus Acacia and the subgenus Plurinerves that is endemic to north western Australia.

Description

The low spreading viscid shrub typically grows to a height of and has terete, glabrous, resinous and obscurely ribbed branchlets. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The evergreen phyllodes growing in clusters of two to six per node and have threadlike appearance and are straight to slightly curved. The flexible and glabrous phyllodes are about in length and have a diameter of around and are superficially nerveless. It blooms in July and produces yellow flowers.

Taxonomy

The species was first formally described by the botanists Richard Sumner Cowan and Bruce Maslin in 1995 as a part of the work Acacia Miscellany. Miscellaneous taxa of northern and eastern Australia of Acacia section Plurinerves as published in the journal Nuytsia. It was reclassified as Racosperma manipulare by Leslie Pedley in 2003 then transferred back to genus Acacia in 2006.

Distribution

It is native to an area in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley region of Western Australia where it is commonly situated on shale plateaux growing in rocky, skeletal soils. It has a limited range from between Mount House Station and Tableland Station where it is usually a part of tall shrubland communities associated with Eucalyptus brevifolia and species of Melaleuca.