Vachellia reficiens
Vachellia reficiens, commonly known as red-bark acacia, red thorn, false umbrella tree, or false umbrella thorn, is a deciduous tree or shrub of the pea family native to southern Africa, often growing in an upside-down cone shape and with a relatively flat crown.
Taxonomy
The Austrian naturalist Heinrich Wawra von Fernsee described Vachellia reficiens in 1859. It forms a species complex with V. luederitzii, also from central and southern Africa. Two subspecies exist: V. reficiens subspecies reficiens, which found in Angola and southwestern Africa, and has affinities to V. luederitzii, and V. reficiens subsp. misera which is found in eastern Africa, from Sudan and Somalia through Kenya and into Uganda, and has affinities to V. etbaica. With the re-typification of the genus Acacia this species was placed in Vachellia.Description
Vachellia reficiens can grow up to in height. Its bark is reddish-brown or greyish-black, and is quite rough and fissured. The younger growing branches can have a purple-red appearance, hence its common names. An interesting characteristic about this plant is that it has both, long, straight thorns and shorter curved/hook-like thorns, but generally not both in one pair. Leaves are bipinnately compound with 1 to 4 pinnae pairs, where each pinna again has 5 to 13 leaflet pairs. The flowers are white- to cream-coloured, and mostly seen during the summer months of December and January, but they can blossom almost all year round, depending on the geographical location. The fruit is a flat red-brown pod.Distribution and habitat
Vachellia reficiens is found in the drier areas of Africa, in the countries of Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. This plant prefers rocky soil types and it does not grow in high rainfall areas, but rather in semidesert and arid shrubland.It is an abundant dominant species of arid shrubland throughout Kenya, and it forms up to 30% of total woody canopy in the South Turkana Ecosystem in the Turkana District. In some savannas and woodlands Vachellia reficiens is a species of woody encroachment, crowding out herbaceous plants.