Acacia alaticaulis Kodela & Tindale (ms)
Spindly or straggly shrub to small tree to 4 m high; branches often pendulous. Branchlets glabrous or very sparsely puberulous, with convoluted, winged ridges to 3 mm high. Leaves dark to mid-green above, paler below; petiole to 5 mm long, winged, glabrous or almost so, with a gland 1–2 mm long; rachis 1.4–8.5 cm long or absent, winged, glabrous or sparsely puberulous, often with a small gland at base of terminal and rarely other pair(s) of pinnae, interjugary glands absent; pinnae 1–10 pairs, 1.2–6 cm long; pinnules 7–17 pairs, well-spaced, oblong to narrowly oblong, narrowly ovate to lanceolate or narrowly obovate, 2.5–11 mm long, 0.9–3.6 mm wide, recurved, mostly glabrous, apex acuminate or acute. Inflorescences in axillary or terminal racemes or panicles; axes to 33.5 cm long, winged. Heads 6–16-flowered, cream-coloured to pale yellow. Pods straight-sided or sometimes irregularly constricted between seeds, usually curved, 6–12 cm long, 11–13 mm wide, coriaceous, reddish brown or blackish brown, with minor transverse veins, sometimes rough over seeds, glabrous; margins prominent, paler.
Localised in the Howes Mtn area and at Mt Murwin, Yengo Natl Park, N.S.W. Grows in sandy and sandy clay soils, on ridges and hillslopes, on sandstone or at the junction of shale and sandstone, in eucalypt woodland or open forest with shrub understorey. Flowers Dec.–May; fruits Nov.
Allied to A. terminalis and A. kulnurensis ; distinguished from the latter by the winged branchlets, petioles and rachises, almost glabrous branchlets and foliage, as well as often having shorter bracts and slightly narrower pods.
Type of accepted name
Howes Mtn, 80 miles (128 km) N of Windsor on the Windsor- Singleton road, N.S.W., 26 Mar. 1972, R.G.Coveny 4108 & R.Bisby ; holo: NSW; iso: BRI, CANB, K, MEL, US.
Illustrations
K.Maryott-Brown & D.Wilks, Rare & Endangered Pl. of Yengo Natl Park & Adjacent Areas 16 (1993), as A. terminalis (winged form); M.D.Tindale & P.G.Kodela, loc. cit.
Representative collections
N.S.W.: Howes Mtn: 26 Aug. 1959, E.F.Constable s.n. (CANB, MEL, NSW, PERTH); 11 Feb. 1968, R.G.Coveny s.n. (B, CANB, MO, NSW, PERTH); R.G.Coveny 10209 & J.Seur (A, AD, BRI, CANB, HO, L, NSW, PERTH, US, Z); P.G.Kodela 270 & T.A.James (CANB, MEL, NSW).
(MDT & PGK)