''Acacia constablei'', commonly known as the Narrabarba wattle, is a species of ''
Acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
'' native to 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 ...
,
and is listed as a vulnerable species.
[
]
Description
The erect to straggly shrub or small tree typically grows to a height of but can be as tall as . It has smooth mottled to light grey bark with angled to terete branchlets with knobbly ridges. The shrub usually blooms between June and August but has also been known to bloom between February and March. It produces pale yellow to creamy white spherical flower heads.[ The feathery shaped leaves have a length of and contain 6 to 14 pairs of leaflets which in turn are composed of 9 to 30 pairs of pinnules.][ The Inflorescences appear as up a maximum of 12 flowers-heads grow per axil at the base of the leaf. After flowering dark brown to black seed pods that are flat and straight with a length of and a width of are covered in short fine hairs.]
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist Mary Tindale
Mary Douglas Tindale (19 September 1920 – 31 March 2011) was an Australian botanist specialising in pteridology (ferns) and the genera ''Acacia'' and ''Glycine''.
Tindale was born in Randwick, New South Wales, the only child of George Harold Ti ...
in 1980 as part of the
work ''Notes on Australian taxa of Acacia'' as published in the journal '' Telopea''. It was reclassified as ''Racosperma constablei'' by Leslie Pedley in 2003 then transferred back into the genus ''Acacia'' in 2006.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 Ernest Francis Constable who was once the botanical collector for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.[
]
Distribution
The shrub has a limited distribution about south of Eden
Eden may refer to:
* Garden of Eden, the "garden of God" described in the Book of Genesis
Places and jurisdictions
Canada
* Eden, Ontario
* Eden High School
Middle East
* Eden, Lebanon, a city and former bishopric
* Camp Eden, Iraq
O ...
in south western New South Wales with the bulk of the population confined to the Nadgee State Forest and within the boundaries of the proposed Narrabarba Hill Flora Reserve over a range of about . Another smaller population in situated in Beowa National Park. The species is found on rocky rhyolite
Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...
and apatite
Apatite is a group of phosphate minerals, usually hydroxyapatite, fluorapatite and chlorapatite, with high concentrations of OH−, F− and Cl− ions, respectively, in the crystal. The formula of the admixture of the three most common e ...
ridge-tops with nutrient poor skeletal sandy soils but sometimes in brown to black loamy soils. The estimated population is about 6,000 individuals in an area of around .[
]
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=Q15289761
constablei
Fabales of Australia
Flora of New South Wales
Taxa named by Mary Tindale
Plants described in 1980