| Acacia bifaria | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Clade: | Mimosoideae |
| Genus: | Acacia |
| Species: | A. bifaria |
| Binomial name | |
| Acacia bifaria | |
Acacia bifaria is a shrub belonging to the genus Acacia . It is native to an area along the south coast of Western Australia. [1]
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.
The shrub is a prostrate to semi-prostrate often domed in shape. It typically grows to a height of 0.3 to 0.8 metres (1.0 to 2.6 ft) and a width of 2 m (6.6 ft). [1] The slightly to prominently flexuose and glabrous branchlets have persistent stipules. The evergreen phyllodes are continuous with branchlets and form opposite wings with each one extending to the next below. Each phyllode is 1 to 3.5 centimetres (0.39 to 1.38 in) in length and has a width of 4 to 10 millimetres (0.157 to 0.394 in). [2] It produces yellow spherical inflorescences between August and December. [1] The rudimentary inflorescences contain 16 to 23 light golden flowers. The black seed pods that form after flowering are strongly curved to twice-coiled with a length of around 2 cm (0.79 in) and 2 to 3 mm (0.079 to 0.118 in) wide containing oblong seeds. [2]
In botany, stipule is a term coined by Linnaeus which refers to outgrowths borne on either side of the base of a leafstalk. A pair of stipules is considered part of the anatomy of the leaf of a typical flowering plant, although in many species the stipules are inconspicuous or entirely absent. In some older botanical writing, the term "stipule" was used more generally to refer to any small leaves or leaf-parts, notably prophylls.
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 purpose of the leaf.
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.
The species was first formally described by the botanist Bruce Maslin in 1995 as part of the work Acacia Miscellany Taxonomy of some Western Australian phyllocladinous and aphyllodinous taxa (Leguminosae: Mimosoideae) as published in the journal Nuytsia . The species as reclassified as Racosperma bifarium in 2003 by Leslie Pedley but returned to the genus Acacia in 2006. [3]
Bruce Roger Maslin is an Australian botanist.
Nuytsia is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Western Australian Herbarium. It publishes papers on systematic botany, giving preference to papers related to the flora of Western Australia. Nearly twenty percent of Western Australia's plant taxa have been published in Nuytsia. The journal was established in 1970 and has appeared irregularly since. The editor-in-chief is Kevin Thiele.
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.
A. bifaria is found among mallee and woodland communities [2] but has a limited range inland along the south coast of Western Australia in the area around Jerramungup and Ravensthorpe. It is often found in clay, rocky loam or sandy soils on undulating plains, low-lying areas and on roadsides. [1]
Mallee is the growth habit of certain eucalypt species that grow with multiple stems springing from an underground lignotuber, usually to a height of no more than 10 m (33 ft). It is most common in plants of the genus Eucalyptus, many of which naturally grow in a mallee habit, and some of which grow as single-stemmed trees initially, but recover in mallee form if burnt to the ground by bushfire. It also occurs in the closely related genera Corymbia and Angophora. The word "mallee" may also be used as a noun in reference to species or individual plants with a mallee habit.
Jerramungup is a Western Australian town located in the Great Southern agricultural region, 454 kilometres (282 mi) southeast of Perth 6 kilometres (4 mi) west of the Gairdner River.
Ravensthorpe is a town 541 km south-east of Perth, 40 km inland from the south coast of Western Australia. It is the seat of government of the Shire of Ravensthorpe. At the 2006 census, Ravensthorpe had a population of 438.
