''Acacia scleroclada'' 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
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to an area 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 spreading pungent shrub typically grows to a height of
[ and has a somewhat straggly habit. It has glabrous, straight and ascending branchlets that have striated ribbing that erminate with hard and rigid spiny points. 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 glabrous, pungent and subrigid phyllodes are a grey-green to blue-green colour. The phyllodes resemble the branchlets and have a narrowly linear to linear-elliptic shape and are narrowed at both ends. The straight or shallowly incurved phyllodes have a length of and a width of with a prominent midrib and five main nerves.[ It blooms from June to September and produces yellow flowers.][
]
Distribution
It is native to an area in the Mid West
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
and Wheatbelt regions of 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 ...
where it is often situated on hills and amonggranite
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 growing in shallow sand or clay-sand soils.
See also
* List of ''Acacia'' species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15289035
scleroclada
Acacias of Western Australia
Taxa named by Bruce Maslin
Plants described in 1995