Acacia citriodora Tindale & D.Keith (ms)
Semiprostrate, flat-topped, resinous shrub to 2 m high, branching from base. Bark fissured, grey-brown. Branchlets slender and angular near apices, light brown or light red-brown, glabrous, tuberculate; ridges pale coloured. Phyllodes linear-elliptic, sometimes basally tapered, flat, slightly upcurved to ±straight, 1.2–5.5 cm long, 1.5–5 mm wide, thick, glabrous, the minor veins sunken, obscure, sometimes with 2 longitudinal semiprominent veins; glands 1–3, minute, 4–22 mm above pulvinus. Spikes 0.9–3 cm long, golden. Flowers 5-merous; calyx 0.5–1.2 mm long, cut to 1/2–4/5, glabrous; corolla 1–2 mm long, cut to c. 1/2, glabrous; ovary glabrous or scurfy. Pods erect, linear-oblanceolate, basally tapered, flat, straight-sided, 2.5–5 cm long, woody, almost glabrous, obliquely veined, opening elastically from apex; margins thickly tuberculate. Seeds oblique, oblong-elliptic, 3.2–5 mm long, brown or olive-brown, with often darker, open areole; funicle-aril narrowly conical.
Occurs in arid tropical Australia, in the Halls Creek-Margaret R. area and N coast between Port Hedland and Anna Plains, W.A., the Tanami district, N.T. and mainly in the Mount Isa-Camooweal area, Qld. Grows in gravelly, red or brown, skeletal soils on quartzite or laterite, on ridges or plains in spinifex-shrubland or savannah eucalypt woodland. Flowers May–Oct.
Allied to A. hilliana from which it is distinguished by its flat, linear-elliptic phyllodes with 1–3 marginal glands, paler pods and larger seeds. Further fruiting material is needed.
Type of accepted name
Mt Isa–Camooweal road, Qld, June 1967, C.H.Gittins 1260 ; holo: NSW.
Synonymy
[ Acacia arida auct. non Benth.: L.Pedley, Proc. Roy. Soc. Queensland 75: 34 (1964)]
[ Acacia hilliana auct. non Maiden: L.Pedley, Austrobaileya 1: 134 (1978)]
Representative collections
W.A.: 4 miles [6.4 km] E of Mary R. crossing on Great Northern Hwy, J.R.Maconochie 1144 (NSW, NT); 65 miles [104 km] W of Halls Creek, I.V.Newman 630 (K, MEL, NSW). N.T.: Old Tanami mine site, D.Keith 136 & B.Pellow (MO, NSW, SYD). Qld: 5 miles [8 km] ESE of Coolullah Stn, M.Lazarides 3988 (CANB, NSW, NT); 49 miles [78.4 km] E of Camooweal township, R.A.Perry 759 (CANB, NSW).
(NSW)