Acacia benthamii | |
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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. benthamii
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Binomial name | |
Acacia benthamii | |
Occurrence data from AVH |
Acacia benthamii is a shrub of the genus Acacia and the subgenus Plurinerves. It is native to an area along the west coast in the Perth metropolitan region and Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. [1]
The shrub typically grows to a height of 1 to 3 metres (3 to 10 ft). [1] It has ribbed glabrous branchlets with new shoots that are minutely woolly and with caducous stipules with a length of 1.5 to 2 mm (0.059 to 0.079 in). The pungent linear green phyllodes are attenuate at both ends and commonly inequilateral and have a length of 2 to 4.5 cm (0.79 to 1.77 in) and a width of 2 to 4 mm (0.079 to 0.157 in) with two or three main nerves per face. [2] It blooms from August to September and produces yellow flowers. [1] The spherical flower-heads have a diameter of 5 mm (0.20 in) and contain 27 to 35 golden flowers that are sharply inflexed. [2]
The species was first formally described by the botanist Carl Meissner in 1844 in the Johann Georg Christian Lehmann work Plantae Preissianae. [3] [4] It was reclassified as Racosperma benthamii by Leslie Pedley in 2003, but returned to the genus Acacia in 2006. [3] It is closely related to Acacia sessilis and closely resembles Acacia cochlearis. [2]
The specific epithet, benthamii, honours George Bentham. [4] [5]
It is endemic to the west of Western Australia from around Dandaragan in the north [1] to around Subiaco in the south and is commonly found on limestone breakaways. [2]