Acacia jackesiana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Betsy'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. jackesiana |
| Binomial name | |
| Acacia jackesiana | |
 | |
| Occurrence data from AVH | |
Acacia jackesiana, also known as Betsy's wattle,[1] is a shrub belonging to the genus Acacia and the subgenus Juliflorae that is native to north eastern Australia.[2]
It is named for the botanist Dr Betsy Jackes (1935–), a professor at the James Cook University of North Queensland.
The prostrate shrub typically grows to a height of 1 metre (3 ft) and has red-brown coloured angular branchlets. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The evergreen, glabrous phyllodes have a tetragonous-terete cross-section and are 9 to 14 cm (3.5 to 5.5 in) in length and 0.8 to 1 mm (0.031 to 0.039 in) wide. The phyllodes are made up of overlapping scaly lobes and have one dominant nerve at each angle with a total of 8 to 12 nerves. It blooms from July and October producing yellow flowers.[2] The cylindrical flower-spikes have a length of 1.2 to 2.2 cm (0.47 to 0.87 in) packed with golden coloured flowers. The sub-woody, glabrous seed pods that form after flowering are linear and tapered at each end. The pods have a length of 6 to 10.5 cm (2.4 to 4.1 in) with prominent fawn coloured margins. The light brown seeds inside are arranged longitudinally and have an elliptic shape with a length of 4.8 to 5.4 mm (0.19 to 0.21 in) and have a thin pleurogram.[2]