Acacia betchei Maiden & Blakely, J. & Proc. Roy. Soc. New South Wales 60: 174; pl. 13, figs 4–11 (1927)
Red-tip Wattle
Shrubs to 4 m high. Branchlets slender, dark reddish, glabrous. Phyllodes narrowly linear, straight to shallowly incurved, 5–11 (- 14) cm long, 2–3 mm wide, rounded-mucronulate with central mucro, thin, finely wrinkled when dry, glabrous; midrib obscure; gland often absent, variably positioned but commonly near middle of phyllode, small but exserted. Inflorescences 5–15-headed racemes; raceme axes 1.5–3.5 cm long, slender, glabrous; heads globular, 12–25-flowered, pale to bright yellow; peduncles slender, 3–8 mm long, stouter and to 11 mm long in fruit. Flowers 5-merous; sepals united but ultimately splitting and spathulate. Pods linear, to 14 cm long, 5–7 mm wide, coriaceous to thinly crustaceous, dark brown to blackish, glabrous, dehiscing unilaterally; stipe 6–7 mm long. Seeds longitudinal, oblong, 5.5–6.5 mm long, somewhat shiny, black; aril clavate, as long as seed.
Tablelands of the Great Divide from Torrington, north-eastern N.S.W., to Dalveen, south-eastern Qld. Grows in forest communities in sand derived from granite.
Similar to A. adunca which has uncinate phyllodes with the glands only slightly exserted, flowers somewhat larger ( fide L.Pedley, Austrobaileya 1: 288, 1980) and normally less numerous in the heads, and broader pods. Also resembling A. floydii and A. macnuttiana .
Type of accepted name
Wallangarra, Qld, Dec. 1891, E.Betche s.n. ; holo: NSW.
Synonymy
Racosperma betchei (Maiden & Blakely) Pedley, Austrobaileya 2: 345 (1987). Type: as for accepted name.
[ Acacia adunca auct. non A.Cunn. ex Don: J.H.Maiden, Forest Fl. New South Wales 5: 116 (1912), as to R.H.Cambage 1622 and the Wallangarra specimens of E.Betche and J.L.Boorman]
Illustrations
J.H.Maiden & W.F.Blakely, loc. cit .; I.B.Armitage, Acacias New South Wales 87 (1978); T.Tame, Acacias SE Australia 148, fig. 161, pl. 161 (1992).
Representative collections
Qld: 17.5 km N of Stanthorpe on New England Hwy near Cotton Vale, M.E.Ballingall 2292 (NSW, PERTH); Mt Norman, c. 8 km NE of Wallangarra, D.Hockings s.n. (BRI113089). N.S.W.: 1 km N of Torrington on the Silent Grove road, K.Thurtell & R.Coveny 3911 (A n.v ., AD n.v. , BRI, K n.v. , L n.v. , NSW, PERTH, RSA n.v. , US n.v. ).
(BRM)
The information presented here originally appeared on the WATTLE CD-ROM which was jointly published by the Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra, and the Department of Parks and Wildlife, Perth; it was produced by CSIRO Publishing from where it is available for purchase. The WATTLE custodians are thanked for allowing us to post this information here.
