Acacia leiophylla is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to coastal areas of South Australia. It is a shrub or tree with sickle-shaped, glabrous, thinly leathery phyllodes, spherical heads of bright yellow flowers and linear, firmly papery to thinly leathery pods raised over the seeds.
Description Acacia leiophylla is a shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of up to and has glabrous, somewhat bending branchlets. Its phyllodes are sickle-shaped, glabrous, thinly leathery, mostly long, wide with a narrowed base, on a pulvinus long. There is a single vein on each face of the phyllodes and a gland usually up to above the pulvinus. The flowers a borne in many spherical heads in racemes long on the ends of branches, or in panicles, on glabrous peduncles long, each head with mostly 26 to 28 densely arranged, bright yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from August to November, and the pods are linear, up to long and wide, firmly papery to thinly leathery and raised over the seeds. The seeds are oblong, about long and dark reddish brown, with a club-shaped aril.
Similar in appearance to A. pycnantha, it can be distinguished by its lighter phyllodes.
Taxonomy Acacia leiophylla was first formally described in 1842 by George Bentham in Hooker's London Journal of Botany from specimens collected near King George Sound by "Bagster".
Bruce Maslin and Whibley noted that "Bagster" was corrected to "Baxter" in Bentham's Flora Australiensis and that "King George Sound" is an error for "Kangaroo Island".
Distribution and habitat This species of wattle occurs along the south coast of South Australia from around Coffin Bay to the Eyre Peninsula and Mount Gambier where it grows in red, shallow, porous loamy limy to leached sands in open scrub with mallee eucalypts.
See also List of Acacia species
References