Acacia bidentata

Acacia bidentata
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Fabales
Family:	Fabaceae
Genus:	Acacia
Species:	A. bidentata
Binomial name
	Acacia bidentata; Benth.

Last updated March 06, 2019

Acacia bidentata is a shrub belonging to the genus Acacia and the subgenus Phyllodineae and is native to Western Australia.

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 Australia, with the first species A. nilotica described by Linnaeus. Controversy erupted in the early 2000s when it became evident that the genus as it stood was not monophyletic, and that several divergent lineages needed to be placed in separate genera. It turned out that one lineage comprising over 900 species mainly native to Australia was not closely related to the mainly African lineage that contained A. nilotica—the first and type species. This meant that the Australian lineage would need to be renamed. Botanist Les Pedley named this group Racosperma, which was inconsistently adopted. Australian botanists proposed that this would be more disruptive than setting a different type species and allowing this large number of species to remain Acacia, resulting in the two African lineages being renamed Vachellia and Senegalia, and the two New World lineages renamed Acaciella and Mariosousa. This was officially adopted, but many botanists from Africa and elsewhere disagreed that this was necessary.

Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, and the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres, and the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia's Sakha Republic. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants – around 11 percent of the national total – of whom the vast majority live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.

Description

The prostrate and domed shrub typically grows to a height of 0.1 to 1 metre (0 to 3 ft).^[1] The branchlets are a scurfy white colour with inconspicuous stipules. The phyllodes are an obovate to obtriangular-obdeltate shape and mostly 4 to 7 millimetres (0.16 to 0.28 in) long and 2.5 to 5 mm (0.10 to 0.20 in) wide. The green phyllodes are glabrous or hairy on their margins.^[2] It blooms from July to October and produces white to cream or yellow flowers.^[1] Each inflorescence contains one to three globular to obloid shaped heads that contain 10 to 16 loosely packed creamy white or pale yellow flowers. After flowering strong curved seed pods that are around 15 mm (0.59 in) in length and 3 to 4 mm (0.12 to 0.16 in) wide. The seeds have an oblong-ovate shape and are 3 to 3.5 mm (0.12 to 0.14 in) long.^[2]

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. The modifications can involve the length and the nature of the internodes and the phyllotaxis, as well as variations in the proportions, compressions, swellings, adnations, connations and reduction of main and secondary axes. Inflorescence can also be defined as the reproductive portion of a plant that bears a cluster of flowers in a specific pattern.

Taxonomy

The species was first formally described by the botanist George Bentham in 1842 as part of William Jackson Hooker's work Notes on Mimoseae, with a synopsis of species as published in the London Journal of Botany. It was reclassified as Racosperma bidentatum in 2003 by Leslie Pedley then transferred back to the Acacia genus in 2006.^[3]

George Bentham was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century".

Sir William Jackson Hooker was an English systematic botanist and organiser, and botanical illustrator. He held the post of Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow University, and was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He enjoyed the friendship and support of Sir Joseph Banks for his exploring, collecting and organising work. His son, Joseph Dalton Hooker, succeeded him to the Directorship of Kew Gardens.

Leslie Pedley is an Australian botanist who specialised in the genus Acacia. He is notable for bringing into use the generic name Racosperma, foreshadowing a split in the genus with the Australian species requiring to be renamed.

Distribution

It is native to an area in the Mid West, Wheatbelt and the Great Southern regions of Western Australia.^[1] It has a scattered distribution from Kalbarri in the north and then south around Carnamah. It occurs predominantly south from Carnamah to Stirling Range National Park in the south and east to around Grass Patch where it grows in clay, sand, sandy loam, gravelly loam and loamy soils and is usually part of mallee woodland and heath communities.^[2]

The Mid West region is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is a sparsely populated region extending from the west coast of Western Australia, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) north and south of its administrative centre of Geraldton and inland to 450 kilometres (280 mi) east of Wiluna in the Gibson Desert.

The Wheatbelt is one of nine regions of Western Australia defined as administrative areas for the state's regional development, and a vernacular term for the area converted to agriculture during colonisation. It partially surrounds the Perth metropolitan area, extending north from Perth to the Mid West region, and east to the Goldfields-Esperance region. It is bordered to the south by the South West and Great Southern regions, and to the west by the Indian Ocean, the Perth metropolitan area, and the Peel region. Altogether, it has an area of 154,862 square kilometres (59,793 sq mi).

The Great Southern Region is one of the nine regions of Western Australia, as defined by the Regional Development Commissions Act 1993, for the purposes of economic development. It is a section of the larger South Coast of Western Australia and neighbouring agricultural regions.

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References

1 2 3 "Acacia bidentata". FloraBase . Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.
1 2 3 "Acacia bidentata". World Wide Wattle. Western Australian Herbarium. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
↑ "Acacia bidentata Benth". Atlas of Living Australia. Global Biodiversity Information Facility . Retrieved 3 September 2018.

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[FloraBase-1] 1 2 3 "Acacia bidentata". FloraBase . Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.

[www-2] 1 2 3 "Acacia bidentata". World Wide Wattle. Western Australian Herbarium. Retrieved 3 September 2018.

[at-3] "Acacia bidentata Benth". Atlas of Living Australia. Global Biodiversity Information Facility . Retrieved 3 September 2018.