''Acacia alcockii'', also known as Alcock's wattle,
is a species of flowering plant in the family
and is
endemic to South Australia. It is a bushy shrub with narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped
phyllode
Phyllodes are modified petioles or leaf stems, which are leaf-like in appearance and function. In some plants, these become flattened and widened, while the leaf itself becomes reduced or vanishes altogether. Thus the phyllode comes to serve the ...
s with the narrower end towards the base, and
raceme
A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...
s of 5 to 11 spherical heads of pale yellow flowers, and oblong
pods.
Description
''Acacia alcockii'' is a bushy shrub that typically grows to a height of up to about and often forms
suckers. Its branchlets are
glabrous and dark reddish. Its phyllodes narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, mostly long and wide, with a
gland
In animals, a gland is a group of cells in an animal's body that synthesizes substances (such as hormones) for release into the bloodstream (endocrine gland) or into cavities inside the body or its outer surface (exocrine gland).
Structure
De ...
usually above the
pulvinus
A pulvinus (pl. ''pulvini'') is a joint-like thickening at the base of a plant leaf or leaflet that facilitates growth-independent movement. Pulvini are common, for example, in members of the bean family Fabaceae (Leguminosae) and the prayer plant ...
, the pulvinus itself long.
The flowers are borne in spherical heads of 5 to 11 on a raceme mostly long on a
peduncle Peduncle may refer to:
*Peduncle (botany), a stalk supporting an inflorescence, which is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed
*Peduncle (anatomy), a stem, through which a mass of tissue is attached to a body
**Peduncle (art ...
mostly long, each head with 25 to 40 pale yellow flowers. Flowering time varies between populations, and the fruit is an oblong to narrowly oblong, leathery to crusty pod up to long and wide, containing dull black oblong seeds long.
Taxonomy
''Acacia alcockii'' was first formally described in 1987 in the journal ''
Nuytsia'' from specimens collected in
Lincoln National Park
Lincoln National Park is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located about west of the state capital of Adelaide and about south of the municipal seat of Port Lincoln. It consists of a mainland area on the Jussieu Pen ...
in 1983.
The
specific epithet
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
honours Charles Raymond Alcock,
who was a plant collector well known for the specimens he collected on the Eyre Peninsula including the first collection of ''A. alcockii''.
Distribution and habitat
Alcock's wattle is native to southern parts of the
Eyre Peninsula on the south west coast between Mount Dutton and Mount Drummond. On the south east coast the shrub is found between Billy Light Point close to
Port Lincoln to the
Lincoln National Park
Lincoln National Park is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located about west of the state capital of Adelaide and about south of the municipal seat of Port Lincoln. It consists of a mainland area on the Jussieu Pen ...
[ where it grows in sandy soils over limestone and sometimes in skeletal soils above granite.][
]
See also
*List of Acacia species
Several Cladistics, cladistic analyses have shown that the genus ''Acacia sensu lato, Acacia'' is not monophyletic. While the subg. ''Acacia'' and subg. ''Phyllodinae'' are monophyletic, subg. ''Aculeiferum'' is not. This subgenus consists of thr ...
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q14861093
alcockii
Flora of South Australia
Plants described in 1987
Taxa named by Bruce Maslin