''Acacia williamsonii'', known colloquially as Whirrakee wattle, is a species of ''
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 ...
'' that is endemic to the Bendigo region of Victoria. Naturalised populations also exist in Southern and Northern NSW.
Description
The shrub typically grows to a height of around and has a bushy habit with
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 ...
branchlets. 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 evergreen phyllodes are inclined to ascending with a narrowly linear shape and a length of and a width of and are often slightly curved. It blooms between August and September producing spherical flower-heads that contain 15–20-flowered sub-densely packed bright golden flowers. After flowering firmly chartaceous to crustaceous, black coloured
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 form that resemble and string of beads with a length of up to and a width of with longitudinally arranged seeds inside. The shiny black seeds have an oblong to elliptic shape and a length of .
[
]
Distribution
It 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 northern-central Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
from around Inglewood in the south to Rushworth in the north with large populations found in the Whipstick Forest around Bendigo
Bendigo ( ) is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital.
As of 2019, Bendigo had an urban population of 100,991, makin ...
where it is found growing in stony gravel or clay-loam soils as a part of open ''Eucalyptus
''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...
'' forest and mallee scrubland communities.[
]
See also
* List of ''Acacia'' species
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15289347
williamsonii
Fabales of Australia
Flora of New South Wales
Flora of Victoria (state)