''Acacia cognata'', commonly known as bower wattle, river wattle or narrow-leaved bower wattle, is a tree or shrub species that is endemic to south eastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Description

It grows typically grows to a height of in height and has an erect to spreading habit. It has smooth, grey or grey-brown coloured bark on the trunk and larger branches. The branchlets have low longitudinal green to brown coloured ridges that alternate with sticky resinous bands. The green linear to narrowly elliptic phyllodes are slightly curved and have a length of and a width . The sparsely hairy to glabrous phyllodes have ciliate margins with three main longitudinal veins. The pale yellow globular flower-heads have a diameter of and contain 10 to 25 flowers and appear singly or in pairs in the leaf axils between July and October in the species' native range. The papery, straight, flat seed pods are slightly raised over seeds with a length of and a width of .

Distribution

It is native to the states of New South Wales and Victoria, where it grows in granite-based soils as part of dry

sclerophyll forest Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or oblique to direct ...

communities.

Taxonomy

The species was first formally described by the botanist Karel Domin in 1926 as part of the work ''Beitrage zur Flora und Pflanzengeographie Australiens'' as published in the work ''Bibliotheca Botanica''. It was reclassified as ''Racosperma cognatum'' in 2003 by Leslie Pedley then transferred back to genus ''Acacia'' in 2006.

Cultivars

A number of

cultivars A cultivar is a type of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and when Plant propagation, propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and st ...

have been developed: *'Bower Beauty' *'Cousin Itt' (Citation required - cousin It is ''Casuarina glauca, not an acacia.)'' *'Copper Tips' *'Fettuccini' *'Green Mist' *'Lime Magik' *'Limelight' *'Mop Top' *'Waterfall'

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4670894 cognata Flora of New South Wales Flora of Victoria (Australia) Fabales of Australia Plants described in 1926 Taxa named by Karel Domin