Acacia aphylla
| Acacia aphylla | |
|---|---|
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Genus: | Acacia |
| Species: | A. aphylla |
| Binomial name | |
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Acacia aphylla Maslin |
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Acacia aphylla, commonly known as the leafless rock wattle,twisted desert wattle or live wire, is a species of Acacia which is endemic to an area around Perth in Western Australia.
It is spiny and leafless erect and widely branching shrub that grows to 0.9 to 3 metres (3 to 10 ft) in height and with a width of approximately 2 metres (7 ft). The generally bright green branchlets are rigid, terete and obscurely ribbed. They are smooth, glaucous, glabrous and coarsely pungent. Unlike most Acacia the phyllodes are absent for A. aphylla'.
The thickened blue-green wiry stems have the ability to photosynthesize like leaves so giving the plant an evolutionary adaptation that greatly reduces the total surface area for water loss through transpiration.
It produces yellow spherical flowers between August and October (late winter to mid spring) in its native range. The inflorescences have a simple structure with one per axil. The peduncles are 7 to 10 millimetres (0.28 to 0.39 in) long and glabrous with globular heads. Theyhold 20–30 flowers that are a bright light golden colour. The flowers are 5-merous with free sepals. Seed-pods form later that are linear, 3 to 9 cm (1.2 to 3.5 in) long and 3 to 4 mm (0.12 to 0.16 in) wide containing black seeds that are longitudinal and oblong and about 4 mm (0.2 in) long. Pods are mature from December to March.
Plants are mostly killed by fire but populations will regenerate from the soil seedbank.
The shrub has a restricted range and is only found in two areas in the Darling Range about 60 kilometres (37 mi) apart from each other. The areas are both to the east of Perth with one population being found in Hidden Valley area in the Helena River and the other south of Northam in the Clackline Nature Reserve.
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Wikipedia