''Acacia drummondii'', commonly known as Drummond's wattle, is a perennial shrub endemic to
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 ...
.
Description
The erect and compact shrub
[ typically grows to a height of ][ and to a similar width. The branches are thin and reddish and appear close to the ground. It has mid-green to slightly bluish green ornamental foliage. The leaves face upward from the stem and are well divided but not feathery with a length of around .][ It blooms between June and October producing ]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 with yellow flowers.axil
A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, st ...
, the spikes are in length with a soft appearance with clear canary yellow scentless flowers.[
]
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist John Lindley
John Lindley FRS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865) was an English botanist, gardener and orchidologist.
Early years
Born in Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four children of George and Mary Lindley. George Lindley w ...
in 1839 as part of the work ''A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony''. It was reclassified by Leslie Pedley
Leslie Pedley (19 May 1930 – 27 November 2018)IPNILeslie Pedley/ref> was an Australian botanist who specialised in the genus ''Acacia''. He is notable for bringing into use the generic name ''Racosperma'', creating a split in the genus, which r ...
in 2003 as ''Racosperma drummondii'' then transferred back to the genus ''Acacia'' in 2006.Swan River Colony
The Swan River Colony, also known as the Swan River Settlement, or just Swan River, was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth, and it ...
.[
]
Distribution
It has a disjunct distribution extending north through the Wheatbelt region and south to the Great Southern region around Albany. It is found in a variety of habitats including among granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
outcrops, in gullies and low lying areas and on hillsides, and it grows well in sandy and gravelly soils often around laterite
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 ...
.[ It often forms part of the understorey in forest and woodland communities.]
See also
* List of ''Acacia'' species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2822200
drummondii
Acacias of Western Australia
Trees of Australia
Fabales of Australia
Plants described in 1839
Taxa named by John Lindley