Acacia linearifolia, commonly known as stringybark wattle or narrow-leaved wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to eastern continental Australia. It is an erect, spreading shrub or tree with rough bark near the base, thin, narrowly linear, glabrous phyllodes with a prominent midrib, spherical heads of golden yellow flowers, and firmly papery to thinly leathery pods, shallowly constricted between the seeds.
Description Acacia linearifolia is an erect or spreading shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of up to and has smooth grey to grey-brown bark, often corrugated or fissured near the base. The branchlets are glabrous and dark reddish. The phyllodes are narrowly linear, long, wide, thin, glabrous with a prominent midrib and a curved to hooked tip on the end. The flowers are borne in spherical heads in racemes long on peduncles long, each head with 20 to 30 golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from August to October, and the pods are up to about long, wide, firmly papery to thinly leathery, glabrous and reddish brown. The seeds are oblong, long, shallowly constricted between the seeds and shiny black with a club-shaped aril.
Taxonomy Acacia linearifolia was first formally described in 1927 by Joseph Maiden and William Blakely from an unpublished description by Allan Cunningham of a specimen collected in the Blue Mountains. Maiden and Blakely noted "The locality is evidently a mistake, as we know of no such Acacia occurring on the Blue Mountains".
Distribution and habitat Narrow-leaved wattle mainly occurs from near Scone and Denman and west to Gulgong and Dunedoo with outliers at Binalong, Wagga Wagga and The Rock. There is also a small population near Burrowye in Victoria, near the New South Wales border. It often grows in sand on the lower slopes to exposed, rocky sites on sandstone hills in forest and woodland.
See also List of Acacia species
References