''Acacia minutissima'' 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 to parts of 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 shrub has an intricately and openly branched, diffuse to low-spreading habit and typically grows to a height of and a width of . The stem usually divides just above the ground to form horizontally spreading branches. It has light grey coloured slightly roughened bark and
glabrous finely ribbed branchlets that are a light to reddish brown colour at the extremities but age to a grey colour. The branchlets that erect triangular
stipules that are in length. Like most species of ''Acacia'' it has
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 rather than true leaves. Th smooth green and glabrous phyllodes are in length and wide with an asymmetrical elliptic to obtriangular shape ending with a rigid, pungent, straight, brown point with a length of .
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist
Bruce Maslin in 2008 as part of the work ''New taxa of Acacia (Leguminosae: Mimosoideae) and notes on other species from the Pilbara and adjacent desert regions of Western Australia'' as published in the journal ''
Nuytsia''.
The
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 ...
is derived from the
Latin words meaning ''very small'' in reference to the size of the phyllodes.
[
]
Distribution
It is native to an area in the Pilbara and Goldfields-Esperance regions of Western Australia.Little Sandy Desert
The Little Sandy Desert (LSD) is a desert region in the state of Western Australia, lying to the east of the Pilbara and north of the Gascoyne regions. It is part of the Western Desert cultural region, and was declared an interim Australian ...
around Kumpupintil Lake in the east but has a scattered distribution composed of a series of discontinuous populations. In the areas where it does occur it is not uncommon. It is often situated in swales between sand dune
A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...
s an on plains growing in sandy or loamy soils that at times have a gravelly mantle. It is usually a part of shrub steppe communities usually in association with a spinifex hummock grassland understorey.[
]
See also
* List of ''Acacia'' species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q17438699
minutissima
Acacias of Western Australia
Taxa named by Bruce Maslin
Plants described in 2008