Acacia minutissima
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| Acacia minutissima | |
|---|---|
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. minutissima |
| Binomial name | |
| Acacia minutissima | |
Acacia minutissima is a shrub belonging to the genus Acacia and the subgenus Phyllodineae that is endemic to parts of western Australia.
The shrub has an intricately and openly branched, diffuse to low-spreading habit and typically grows to a height of 0.3 to 1.5 m (1 ft 0 in to 4 ft 11 in) and a width of 1 to 3 m (3 ft 3 in to 9 ft 10 in). The stem usually divides just above the ground to form horizontally spreading branches. It has light grey coloured slightly roughened bark and glabrous finely ribbed branchlets that are a light to reddish brown colour at the extremities but age to a grey colour. The branchlets that erect triangular stipules that are 0.5 to 1 mm (0.020 to 0.039 in) in length. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. Th smooth green and glabrous phyllodes are 3 to 7 mm (0.12 to 0.28 in) in length and 2 to 3 mm (0.079 to 0.118 in) wide with an asymmetrical elliptic to obtriangular shape ending with a rigid, pungent, straight, brown point with a length of 0.5 to 1 mm (0.020 to 0.039 in).[1]
Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist Bruce Maslin in 2008 as part of the work New taxa of Acacia (Leguminosae: Mimosoideae) and notes on other species from the Pilbara and adjacent desert regions of Western Australia as published in the journal Nuytsia.[2] The specific epithet is derived from the Latin words meaning very small in reference to the size of the phyllodes.[1]