''Acacia quinquenervia'' is a shrub of 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 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 shrub typically grows to a height of with peeling and fibrous bark.
[ The branchelts are usually densely haired and 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. The green to grey-green phyllodes are flat with a narrowly linear shape with a length of and a width of with five noticeable nerves. The rudimentary inflorescences appear on two branched raceme
A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...
s with spherical flower-heads that have a diameter of and contain 15 to 20 light golden coloured flowers. The linear and biconvex seed pods that form after flowering are shallowly curved and have a length up to around and a width of . The thinly coriaceous-crustaceous seed pods are glabrous to moderately hairy with longitudinally arranged seeds inside. The mottled seeds have an oblong shape with a length of and a terminal conical shaped 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 ...
.
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist Bruce Maslin in 1999 as part of the work ''Acacia miscellany. The taxonomy of fifty-five species of Acacia, primarily Western Australian, in section Phyllodineae (Leguminosae: Mimosoideae)'' as published in the journal '' Nuytsia''. It was reclassified as ''Racosperma quinquenervium'' by Leslie Pedley in 2003 then transferred back to genus ''Acacia'' in 2006.
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 ...
(''quinquenervia'') is from the Latin ''quinque'' meaning "five" and ''nervus'', "vein", referring to the leaves usually having five veins.
Distribution
It is native to an area in the Wheatbelt and Goldfields-Esperance regions of Western Australia where it is commonly situated on flats and undulating plains growing in sandy, clay or loamy soils.Nyabing
Nyabing is a small town in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. The name is of Aboriginal origin and is thought to derive from the Aboriginal word "ne-yameng", which is the name of an everlasting flower ''Rhodanthe manglesii.''
The ...
in the south west to around Peak Charles National Park in the north east where it is usually a part of low '' Eucalyptus'' woodlands or open mallee shrubland communities.[
]
See also
* List of ''Acacia'' species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q9568466
quinquenervia
Acacias of Western Australia
Taxa named by Bruce Maslin
Plants described in 1999