Acacia Dentifera
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''Acacia dentifera'', commonly known as tooth-bearing acacia, is a shrub belonging to the genus ''
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 ...
'' and the subgenus ''Phyllodineae'' that is
endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to south western
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

The erect and loose shrub typically grows to a height of . The shrub has glabrous, straight, brown-dotted branchlet with persistent stipules that can become tooth-like projections at older nodes. The thin, green, linear
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 can sometimes have a narrowly elliptic shape and are straight to shallowly curved. The phyllodes have a length of and a width of and have reddish-brown coloured resinous-hairs when young and a prominent midrib. It blooms from August to November and produces yellow flowers. The simple
inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
s have spherical to obloid flower-heads containing 30 to 45 golden coloured flowers. The terete red to brown coloured
seed pod This page provides a glossary of plant morphology. Botanists and other biologists who study plant morphology use a number of different terms to classify and identify plant organs and parts that can be observed using no more than a handheld magnify ...
s that form after flowering areslightly constricted between the seeds. The pods have a maximum length of and a width of to around . The oblong, semi-glossy bark brown seeds within the pods have a length of with a white
aril An aril (pronounced ), also called an arillus, is a specialized outgrowth from a seed that partly or completely covers the seed. An arillode or false aril is sometimes distinguished: whereas an aril grows from the attachment point of the see ...
.


Distribution

It is native to an area in the eastern suburbs of
Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
in the
Darling Range The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to th ...
and the Peel and the
South West The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
regions of
Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
where it grows in gravelly
lateritic Laterite is both a soil and a rock type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by ...
or granitic based soils. The species is distributed between
Helena Valley Helena may refer to: People *Helena (given name), a given name (including a list of people and characters with the name) *Katri Helena (born 1945), Finnish singer *Helena, mother of Constantine I Places Greece * Helena (island) Guyana * ...
in the north and down to around
Bridgetown Bridgetown (UN/LOCODE: BB BGI) is the capital and largest city of Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Island ...
in the south and is often situated near watercourses or among granite rocks as a part of ''
Eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...
'' forest communities.


See also

* List of ''Acacia'' species


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q9564012 dentifera Acacias of Western Australia Plants described in 1840 Taxa named by George Bentham