Acacia costiniana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Costin's wattle | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Fabales |
| Family: | Fabaceae |
| Subfamily: | Caesalpinioideae |
| Clade: | Mimosoid clade |
| Genus: | Acacia |
| Species: | A. costiniana |
| Binomial name | |
| Acacia costiniana | |
 | |
| Occurrence data from AVH | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
|
Racosperma costinianum (Tindale) Pedley | |
Acacia costiniana, commonly known as Costin's wattle,[2] is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to New South Wales, Australia. It is a weeping, multi-stemmed shrub with crowded, mostly ascending to erect, egg-shaped to elliptic phyllodes, oblong to more or less spherical heads of golden or rich lemon yellow flowers and thinly leathery, narrowly oblong pods.
Acacia costiniana is an erect, weeping or spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of 0.6–2.5 m (2 ft 0 in – 8 ft 2 in), its branchlets covered with soft, downy hairs. Its phyllodes are mostly ascending to erect, asymmetrically egg-shaped to elliptic, 5–20 mm (0.20–0.79 in) long and 5–11 mm (0.20–0.43 in) wide, leathery, and sparsely covered with hairs pressed against the surface. There are stipules 1–3 mm (0.039–0.118 in) long at the base of the phyllodes. The flowers are borne in racemes 5–30 mm (0.20–1.18 in) long in oblong to more or less spherical heads, on a peduncle 1.5–10 mm (0.059–0.394 in) long, each head with 14 to 26 golden or rich lemon yellow flowers. Flowering occurs in August and September, and the pods are thinly leathery, narrowly oblong, up to 50 mm (2.0 in) long and 10–12 mm (0.39–0.47 in) wide and covered with velvety, rust-coloured to silvery hairs. The seeds are shiny black, egg-shaped to oblong, 4–6 mm (0.16–0.24 in) long with a club-shaped aril.[2][3][4][5][6]
Taxonomy
Acacia costiniana was first formally described in 1980 by Mary Tindale in the journal Telopea, from specimens collected on the Tinderry Mountains 13.2 km (8.2 mi) east-south-east of Michelago.[3][7] The specific epithet (costiniana) honours the "renowned ecologist, Alec Baitllie Costin (1925–2022), formerly of the Division of Plant Industry, CSIRO".[2]