Acacia blakei


Acacia blakei, commonly known as Blake's wattle or Wollomombi wattle, is a shrub belonging to the genus Acacia and the subgenus Juliflorae that is native to north eastern Australia.

Description

The erect tree typically grows to a height of less than and has fissured grey coloured bark. It has light green to brown coloured branchlets that are angular toward the apices but otherwise terete that are sometimes pruinose or scurfy. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The phyllodes are flat and falcate with an elliptic to narrowly elliptic shape and a length of and a width of. They are thinly coriaceous and usually glabrous and have two or three conspicuous longitudinal nerves and two or three less prominent nerves separate to the base. It blooms between August and November producing simple inflorescences that occur in groups of one to three in the axils. The cylindrical flower-heads are in length with yellow to pale yellow or cream-coloured flowers. After flowering straight to curved seed pods form that are more or less flat except over the seeds. The glabrous to sparsely hairy seed pods have a length of and a width of and have a firmly papery to thinly leathery texture and are smooth or wrinkled longitudinally.

Taxonomy

There are two known subspecies:
The specific epithet honours the botanist Stanley T. Blake who once worked for the Queensland Herbarium.

Distribution

It is endemic to central and eastern parts of southern Queensland as far north as Emerald and the Blackdown Tableland extending south to north eastern parts of New South Wales to around the Coxs River and Lake Yarrunga to the south west of Sydney. It is usually part of dry sclerophyll forest and woodland communities.