Acacia s.l., known commonly as mimosa, acacia, thorntree or wattle, is a polyphyletic genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae. It was described by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773 based on the African species Acacia nilotica. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not. All species are pod-bearing, with sap and leaves often bearing large amounts of tannins and condensed tannins that historically found use as pharmaceuticals and preservatives.
Acacia pycnantha, most commonly known as the golden wattle, is a tree of the family Fabaceae. It grows to a height of 8 metres and has phyllodes instead of true leaves. The profuse fragrant, golden flowers appear in late winter and spring, followed by long seed pods. Explorer Thomas Mitchell collected the type specimen, from which George Bentham wrote the species description in 1842. The species is native to southeastern Australia as an understorey plant in eucalyptus forest. Plants are cross-pollinated by several species of honeyeater and thornbill, which visit nectaries on the phyllodes and brush against flowers, transferring pollen between them.
Acacia saligna, commonly known by various names including coojong, golden wreath wattle, orange wattle, blue-leafed wattle, Western Australian golden wattle, and, in Africa, Port Jackson willow, is a small tree in the family Fabaceae. Native to Australia, it is widely distributed throughout the south west corner of Western Australia, extending north as far as the Murchison River, and east to Israelite Bay. The Noongar peoples know the tree as Cujong.
Acacia, commonly known as wattles or acacias, is a genus of about 1,084 species of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa, South America, and Australasia, but is now reserved for species mainly from Australia, with others from New Guinea, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean. The genus name is Neo-Latin, borrowed from the Greek ἀκακία, a term used in antiquity to describe a preparation extracted from Vachellia nilotica, the original type species.
Acacia melanoxylon, commonly known as the Australian blackwood, is an Acacia species native to south-eastern Australia. The species is also known as blackwood, hickory, mudgerabah, Tasmanian blackwood, or blackwood acacia. The tree belongs to the Plurinerves section of Acacia and is one of the most wide-ranging tree species in eastern Australia and is quite variable mostly in the size and shape of the phyllodes.
Acacia dealbata, the silver wattle, blue wattle or mimosa, is a species of flowering plant in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is native to southeastern Australia and widely introduced in other warm climates.
Vachellia nilotica, more commonly known as Acacia nilotica, and by the vernacular names of gum arabic tree, babul, thorn mimosa, Egyptian acacia or thorny acacia, is a flowering tree in the family Fabaceae. It is native to Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. It is also considered a 'weed of national significance' and an invasive species of concern in Australia, as well as a noxious weed by the federal government of the United States.
Acacia terminalis is a shrub or small tree to 6 m in height. It is an Australian native whose range extends through New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. Common names are cedar wattle, elata wattle, mountain hickory and peppermint-tree wattle.
Acacia parramattensis, commonly known as Parramatta wattle, is a tree of the family Fabaceae native to the Blue Mountains and surrounding regions of New South Wales. It is a tall shrub or tree to about 15 m (49 ft) in height with phyllodes instead of true leaves. These are finely divided bipinnate. The yellow flowers appear over summer. It generally grows in woodland or dry sclerophyll forest on alluvial or shale-based soils, generally with some clay content.
Leslie Pedley was an Australian botanist who specialised in the genus Acacia. He is notable for bringing into use the generic name Racosperma, creating a split in the genus, which required some 900 Australian species to be renamed, because the type species of Acacia, Acacia nilotica, now Vachellia nilotica, had a different lineage from the Australian wattles. However, the International Botanical Congress (IBC), held in Melbourne in 2011, ratified its earlier decision to retain the name Acacia for the Australian species, but to rename the African species.
Acacia decurrens, commonly known as black wattle or early green wattle, is a perennial tree or shrub native to eastern New South Wales, including Sydney, the Greater Blue Mountains Area, the Hunter Region, and southwest to the Australian Capital Territory. It grows to a height of 2–15 m (7–50 ft) and it flowers from July to September.
Acacia penninervis, commonly known as mountain hickory wattle, or blackwood, is a perennial shrub or tree is an Acacia belonging to subgenus Phyllodineae, that is native to eastern Australia.
Acacia elata, the cedar wattle or mountain cedar wattle, is a tree found in eastern Australia.
Acacia buxifolia, commonly known as box-leaf wattle, is shrub species that is endemic to eastern Australia.
Acacia aspera, commonly known as rough wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-east of continental Australia. It is an erect or spreading shrub with oblong to narrowly oblong or elliptic phyllodes, one or two spherical heads of cream-coloured to golden-yellow flowers and narrowly oblong pods up to 60 mm (2.4 in) long.
Acacia flocktoniae is a shrub species that is endemic to Australia.
Acacia pubescens, also known as the downy wattle, is a species of wattle found in the Sydney Basin in eastern New South Wales. The downy wattle is classified as vulnerable; much of its habitat has vanished with the growth of the city of Sydney. As with all wattles, it has compound (pinnate) leaf stems.
Acacia phasmoides, the phantom wattle, is a shrub species that is endemic to south-eastern Australia.
William Vincent Fitzgerald, was an Australian botanist. He described five genera and about 210 species of plants from Western Australia, including 33 Acacia and several Eucalyptus species. He also collected for other botanists such as Ferdinand von Mueller and Joseph Maiden, and was known through his work on orchids. Eucalyptus fitzgeraldii was named for him by William Blakely.
