Acacia pubescens
| Acacia pubescens | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Genus: | Acacia |
| Species: | A. pubescens |
| Binomial name | |
|
Acacia pubescens (Vent.) R.Br. |
|
| Synonyms | |
|
Racosperma pubescens (Vent.) Pedley |
|
Racosperma pubescens (Vent.) Pedley
Acacia pubescens, also known as the downy wattle, is an endangered species of wattle found in the Sydney Basin in central New South Wales. Much of its habitat has vanished with the growth of the city of Sydney.
French botanist Étienne Pierre Ventenat described the downy wattle in 1803, in his Jardin de la Malmaison as Mimosa pubescens. It had been grown at the Château de Malmaison in the garden of the Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais.Robert Brown gave it its current name in 1813 in Hortus Kewensis. Common names include downy wattle and hairy-stemmed wattle. Derived from the Latin pubescens "hairy", the species name relates to the hairy stems.
George Bentham classified A. pubescens in the series Botrycephalae in his 1864 Flora Australiensis.
Queensland botanist Les Pedley reclassified the species as Racosperma pubescens in 2003, when he proposed placing almost all Australian members of the genus into the new genus Racosperma. However, this name is treated as a synonym of its original name.
Along with other bipinnate wattles, it is classified in the section Botrycephalae within the subgenus Phyllodineae in the genus Acacia. An analysis of genomic and chloroplast DNA along with morphological characters found that the section is polyphyletic, though the close relationships of it and many other species were unable to be resolved.
Hybrids with Cootamundra wattle (Acacia baileyana) and West Wyalong wattle (A. cardiophylla) have been reported.
Acacia pubescens grows as a shrub to small tree anywhere from 1 to 5 m (3.3 to 16.4 ft) high. The smooth bark is grey-brown in colour, and the branches can have a slightly drooping or weeping habit. Like all wattles, the downy wattle has leaf-like structures known as phyllodes which are compound (pinnate) and measure 1.5–6.5 cm (0.59–2.56 in) in length with 3 to 12 pairs of smaller "leaves" or pinnae, each 0.5–2.5 cm (0.20–0.98 in) long, and themselves composite - composed of 5 to 20 pairs of pinnules. Arranged in racemes, the globular yellow flowers appear in spring (August to October), peaking in September. Flowering is followed by the development of 3–7 cm long seed pods, which ripen over October to December.
...
Wikipedia