''Acacia excentrica'' 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'' native to
Western Australia.
Description
The prostrate, domed or spreading prickly shrub typically grows to a height of . The
stipules
In botany, a stipule is an outgrowth typically borne on both sides (sometimes on just one side) of the base of a leafstalk (the petiole). Stipules are considered part of the anatomy of the leaf of a typical flowering plant, although in many speci ...
are in length. It has green
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 a narrowly elliptic to oblong-elliptic and sometimes
lanceolate shape. Each slightly asymmetric phyllode is in length and wide and is sharply pungent.
It produces yellow flowers from July to October.
[ Each simple inflorescence has one or two headed racemes with a length of . The spherical flower heads have a diameter of and contain 20 to 30 golden yellow flowers. Seed pods form later that are linear with one or two coils.][
]
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanists Joseph Maiden and William Blakely in 1928 as part of the work ''Descriptions of fifty new species and six varieties of western and northern Australian Acacias, and notes on four other species'' as published in the ''Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia''. In 2003 it was reclassified as ''Racosperma excentricum'' by Leslie Pedley but transferred back into the genus ''Acacia'' in 2006.
Distribution
It has a scattered and disjunct distribution to an area in the Goldfields-Esperance, Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions of Western Australia between Albany in the west, Kondinin in the north and Cocklebiddy in the east. It is found on the plains where it grows in loamy or sandy clay soils over limestone.
See also
* List of ''Acacia'' species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15286971
excentrica
Acacias of Western Australia
Plants described in 1928
Taxa named by Joseph Maiden
Taxa named by William Blakely