Acacia newbeyi

Acacia newbeyi is a shrub of the genus Acacia and the subgenus Pulchellae that is endemic to an area of south western Australia.

Description

The openly branched and pungent shrub typically grows to a height of and has coarsely pungent and hairy branchlets. The leaves are more or less glabrous and composed of one pair of pinnae with a length of with two pairs of grey-green slightly thickened pinnules that have an oblong to obovate shape with a length and a width of which narrow asymmetrically at the apex. It blooms from July to August and produces yellow flowers. The rudimentary inflorescences are located on single headed racemes and have spherical flower-heads containing 10 to 13 pale yellow coloured flowers. Following flowering thinly leathery and hairy seed pods with a length of and a width of are formed. The glossy seeds inside have an oblong to elliptic shape with a length of

Taxonomy

The species was first formally described by the botanist Bruce Maslin in 1975 as a part of the work Studies in the genus Acacia - A Revision of Series Pulchellae as published in the journal Nuytsia. It was reclassified by Leslie Pedley in 2003 as Racosperma newbeyi then transferred back to genus Acacia in 2006.

Distribution

It is native to an area in the Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions of Western Australia where it is found growing in gravelly lateritic soils. The range of the plant extends from around Nyabing to near Boxwood Hill in the west to west of Ravensthorpe in the east where it is often a part of tall, occasionally open, shrubland communities that are often dominated by species of mallee.