Acacia gillii Maiden & Blakely, J. & Proc. Roy. Soc. New South Wales 60: 184 (1927)
Gill’s Wattle
Straggly open shrub or tree 2–4 m high; branches pendulous. Branchlets flexuose, flat or angled at extremities, dark red-brown, glabrous. Phyllodes subdistant, patent, sometimes reflexed, narrowly oblanceolate, sometimes linear, normally shallowly incurved, 6–17.5 cm long, 6–15 mm wide, tapered at base, obtuse, coriaceous, glabrous; midrib and margins prominent; lateral nerves obscure; gland 3–10 mm above pulvinus; pulvinus 2–4 mm long. Inflorescences racemose, sometimes simple; raceme axes 2–8 cm long, normally flexuose; peduncles 1–2 cm long, somewhat stout, glabrous; heads globular, densely 43–72-flowered, golden; bracteoles golden-fimbriolate. Flowers 5-merous; sepals united to near their apices. Pods linear, to 17 cm long, 5–7 mm wide, coriaceous-crustaceous, glabrous. Seeds longitudinal, elliptic, 4.5–6 mm long, dull, black; funicle encircling seed usually in a double fold, dark red; aril clavate.
Restricted to the Port Lincoln- Marble Ra.- Ungarra area, southern Eyre Penin., S.A. Grows in clay or loam in open scrub, often with Eucalyptus diversifolia and E. phenax .
A member of the ‘ A. microbotrya group’ distinguished from A. retinodes by its wiry, open habit, pendulous branches, flexuose branchlets and longer peduncles. Acacia cretacea has a similar habit to that of A. gillii but is distinguished especially by its pruinose, non-flexuose branchlets, straight, rather crowded, grey-green to glaucous phyllodes (midgreen in A. gillii ) 7–10 cm long and 35–45-flowered heads.
Type of accepted name
Port Lincoln to Marble Ra., S.A., Dec. 1897, W.Gill ; ?syn: NSW.
Synonymy
Acacia gillii is based on the following: Acacia retinodes var. gillii Maiden, Trans. & Proc. Rep. Roy. Soc. S. Australia 32: 275 (1908), nom. illeg. (superfluous as A. pycnantha var. angustifolia Benth. was cited in synonymy). Type: as for accepted name.
Acacia pycnantha var. angustifolia Benth., Fl. Austral . 2: 365 (1864); A. retinodes var. angustifolia (Benth.) J.M.Black (as ‘rhetinodes’), Fl. S. Australia 2: 277 (1924). Type: Memory Cove, S.A., R.Brown ; syn: n.v. ; Spencer’s Gulf, S.A., F.Mueller s.n. ; syn: ?MEL n.v ., NSW. Synonymy following J.H.Maiden & W.F.Blakely, J. & Proc. Roy. Soc. New South Wales 60: 184 (1927).
Illustrations
M.Simmons, Acacias Australia 147 (1981); D.J.E.Whibley & D.E.Symon, Acacias S. Australia 2nd edn, 141 (1992).
Representative collections
S.A.: c. 8 km E of Cockaleechie on the Moreenia- Tumby Bay road, A.E.Orchard 2998 (AD); c. 1.6 km N of Port Lincoln on the hwy to Coffin Bay, M.D.Tindale 489 (AD, NSW, PERTH); Marble Ra., J.Z.Weber 5969 (AD).
(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.
