Acacia maitlandii, commonly known as Maitland's wattle, spiky wattle, spiny-leaved wattle, garrga (by the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people) or as jumbingjar (by the Kurrama people) is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to arid regions of Australia. It is an erect, openly branched shrub, with glabrous red to brown, resinous branchlets, narrowly elliptic to oblong phyllodes, spherical heads of golden yellow flowers, and firmly papery pods rounded over and slightly constricted between the seeds.
Description Acacia maitlandii is an erect, openly branched, usually rather straggly shrub that typically grows to a height of and has red to brown, more or less terete, glabrous, sticky, resinous branchlets. Its phyllodes are more or less straight, narrowly elliptic to oblong, long, wide with a sharply pointed tip and a prominent midrib. The pulvinus is yellow, long, and there are erect stipules long and the base of the phyllodes, but often enveloped in resin. The flowers are borne in a spherical head in axils, on a glabrous peduncle long, the heads about long, with 50 to 90 densely arranged golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from May to September, and the pods are glabrous, firmly papery, long, mostly wide, rounded over and slightly constricted between the seeds. The seeds are elliptic to egg-shaped, long and dark brown, slightly mottled cream-coloured and lack an aril.
Taxonomy Acacia maitlandii was first formally described in 1862 by Ferdinand von Mueller in his Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae from specimens collected by Maitland Brown in the Hamersley Range during the Gregory expedition. The specific epithet (maitlandii) honours the collector of the type specimens.
Distribution and habitat Maitland's wattle occurs in all mainland states of Australia, except Victoria, and is not considered to be threatened with extinction. The favoured soil type is red sand, or stony ground on sandy or stony plains, and on hills.
Uses The species is used to make boomerangs and spearthrowers, and the gum produced is edible. The tree is called garrga in the languages of the Yindjibarndi and Ngarluma people. The seeds have been identified, analysed, and monitored, as a 'wild harvested Australian indigenous food', by Food Standards Australia New Zealand. The product is found to be very high in fats, over half by weight.
See also List of Acacia species
References