''Acacia symonii'', also known commonly as Symon's wattle,
[ is a tree or 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 ''Juliflorae'' 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 parts of arid central 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 tree or shrub typically grows to a height of but can be as tall as and often has a bushy crown. The branchlets are usually glabrous
Glabrousness (from the Latin ''glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...
but can have small hairs at the ribbed and resinous apices. 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 grey-green and erect phyllodes have a linear shape and can be stright or incurved slightly. They have a length of and a width of with three nerves per face with the central nerve being most prominent. It blooms from May to September producing yellow flowers.[ The simple ]inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
s usually occur singly in the axils with cylindrical flower-spikes that have a length of and a diameter of around .seed pod
This page provides a glossary of plant morphology. Botanists and other biologists who study plant morphology use a number of different terms to classify and identify plant organs and parts that can be observed using no more than a handheld magnify ...
s from with a linear shape that have a length of around and a width of around . The pods can be straight or slightly curved and mostly flat but are raised over and constricted between the seeds. The shiny seeds have a light brown colour and are about in length and wide.
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist D.J.Whibley in 1980 as published in the ''Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens''. It was reclassified as ''Racosperma symonii'' by Leslie Pedley
Leslie Pedley (19 May 1930 – 27 November 2018)IPNILeslie Pedley/ref> was an Australian botanist who specialised in the genus ''Acacia''. He is notable for bringing into use the generic name ''Racosperma'', creating a split in the genus, which r ...
in 2003 and then transferred back 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 the South Australian botanist D. E. Symon, who collected the type specimen
In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...
.[
]
Distribution
It is native to an area in northern South Australia
South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
, southern parts of the Northern Territory
The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...
and the central Goldfields
Goldfield or Goldfields may refer to:
Places
* Goldfield, Arizona, the former name of Youngberg, Arizona, a populated place in the United States
* Goldfield, Colorado, a community in the United States
* Goldfield, Iowa, a city in the United State ...
region 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 has a scattered disjunct distribution. It is often situated on low rocky ranges and growing in rocky red soils. In Western Australia it is found from north of Wiluna in the west with a range that extends through the Gibson Desert
The Gibson Desert is a large desert in Western Australia, largely in an almost "pristine" state. It is about in size, making it the fifth largest desert in Australia, after the Great Victoria, Great Sandy, Tanami and Simpson deserts. The ...
into South Australia.
See also
* List of ''Acacia'' species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q9569704
symonii
Acacias of Western Australia
Flora of South Australia
Flora of the Northern Territory
Plants described in 1980