Acacia alleniana is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to northern parts of Australia. It is a spindly, open shrub or tree with slender branchlets, thread-like phyllodes, and yellow flowers arranged in 2 to 6 spherical heads in the axils of phyllodes, and thinly leathery pods up to 150 mm (5.9 in) long.
| Acacia alleniana | |
|---|---|
.jpg)
| |
| A. alleniana foliage | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Subfamily: | Caesalpinioideae |
| Clade: | Mimosoid clade |
| Genus: | Acacia |
| Species: | A. alleniana
|
| Binomial name | |
| Acacia alleniana | |
| |
| Occurrence data from AVH | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
| |
Description
editAcacia alleniana is a spindly, open shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of around 5 m (16 ft) and has glabrous, dark reddish-brown branchlets, sometimes pendulous branches. The phyllodes are thread-like, cylindrical to quadrangular in cross-section, 120–240 mm (4.7–9.4 in) long and 0.5–0.8 mm (0.020–0.031 in) wide. The flowers are borne in 2 to 6 more or less spherical heads 6–13 mm (0.24–0.51 in) in diameter on peduncles 6–13 mm (0.24–0.51 in) long, each head with about 35 yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from February to April, and the pods are thinly leathery, linear, up to 15 mm (0.59 in) long, 2.0–2.5 mm (0.079–0.098 in) wide and raised over the seeds. The seeds are brown, oblong to elliptic, and 4.0–5.5 mm (0.16–0.22 in) long.[2][3][4]
Taxonomy
editAcacia alleniana was first formally described in 1917 Joseph Maiden in The Flora of the Northern Territory from specimens collected in 1912.[5][6] The specific epithet (alleniana) honours Charles Ernest Frank Allen, a former curator of the Darwin Botanical Gardens.[3][7]
This species is closely related to Acacia jasperensis and Acacia juncifolia.[2]
Distribution
editAcacia alleniana is native in the Northern Territory from around Darwin, south and east in Arnhem Land and on many of the islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Its range extends into far north-western Queensland where it is found on hills and sandstone slopes growing in skeletal sandy soils.[2]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "Acacia alleniana". Australian Plant Census. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
- ^ a b c "Acacia alleniana". World Wide Wattle. Western Australian Herbarium. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
- ^ a b Maslin, Bruce R.; Kodela, Phillip G. "Acacia alleniana". Flora of Australia. Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water: Canberra. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
- ^ Pedley, Leslie (1978). "A Revision of Acacia (Mill.) in Queensland". Austrobaileya. 1 (2): 241–242.
- ^ "Acacia alleniana". Australian Plant Name Index. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
- ^ Maiden, Joseph (1917). Ewart, Alfred J.; Davies, Olive B. (eds.). The Flora of the Northern Territory. Melbourne: McCarron, Bird & Co. pp. 330–331. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
- ^ "Allen, Charles Ernest Frank (1876 - ? )". Council of the Heads of Australian Herbaria. Retrieved 3 June 2024.