''Acacia hamiltoniana'', commonly known as Hamilton's wattle, 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 native to parts of eastern Australia.
Description
The shrub typically grows to a height of up to and has a bushy habit with
glabrous, finely ribbed, dark red branchlets. It has smooth, 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 that are mostly ascending to erect. The variable phyllodes have a linear to linear-oblanceolate or narrowly elliptic shape with a length of and a width of and are narrowed at the base. It usually blooms between August and September
producing
inflorescences with spherical flower-heads containing 9 to 15 subdensely packed golden flowers. The
seed pods that form after flowering are black with a length of up to and a width of . the pods contain shiny black seeds with an oblong to elliptic to ovate shape and a length of .
[
]
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist Joseph Maiden in 1920 as part of the work ''Notes on Acacias with descriptions of new species'' as published in the ''Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales''. It was reclassified in 2003 as ''Racosperma hamiltonianum'' by Leslie Pedley then transferred back to 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 Arthur Andrew Hamilton, who collected the type specimen from around Leura in 1907.[
]
Distribution
The shrub has a distribution in the Great Dividing Range
The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...
and the associated foothills in western New South Wales from around Rylstone
Rylstone is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated very near to Cracoe and about 6 miles south west of Grassington. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 160.
Ryls ...
in the north down to around the Clyde River in the south where it is growing in sandy or loamy soils as a part of heath and '' Eucalyptus'' woodland communities.[
]
See also
* List of ''Acacia'' species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15287237
hamiltoniana
Flora of New South Wales
Plants described in 1920
Taxa named by Joseph Maiden