Common name: Northern Silver Wattle
Acacia leucoclada Tindale APNI* Synonyms: Racosperma leucocladum (Tindale) Pedley APNI*
Description: Erect shrub to tree 2.5–20 m high; bark smooth and grey, later rough, fissured, dark brown or blackish; branchlets angled to terete with ridges, often ± pruinose, densely minutely hairy to glabrous.
Leaves with petiole usually 0.5–2.5 cm long, hairy to glabrous, 1 gland below basal pair of pinnae or absent; rachis 2–9.5 cm long, hairy to glabrous, jugary glands absent or irregularly present, interjugary glands usually irregularly present; pinnae mostly 5–18 pairs, 1.5–5.5 cm long; pinnules 11–45 pairs, mostly oblong to narrowly oblong, 1–6 mm long, 0.4–1 mm wide, hairy or glabrous.
Inflorescences in axillary and terminal racemes and panicles; peduncles 1–7 mm long, hairy or rarely glabrous; heads globose, 20–26-flowered, 4–7 mm diam., yellow to bright yellow.
Pods straight to slightly curved, sometimes twisted, ± flat, usually slightly constricted between seeds, 3–12 cm long, 4.5–12 mm wide, thinly leathery, often ± pruinose, with sparse minute hairs, becoming glabrescent; seeds longitudinal; funicle filiform.
Flowering: mainly July–October.
Distribution and occurrence: chiefly north from Wagga. Grows in a variety of soil types usually in sclerophyll communities.
NSW subdivisions: NC, CC, NT, ST, NWS, CWS, SWS, NWP
Other Australian states: Qld
Text by P.G. Kodela
Taxon concept: P.G. Kodela & G.J. Harden (2002)
| | Key to the subspecies | |
| 1 | Petiolar gland mostly present; jugary glands usually present at most or some pairs of pinnae, but sometimes small or absent; interjugary glands usually 1–3 between successive or several pairs of pinnae; pinnules 0.5–1 mm wide; branchlets and foliage with hairs mostly straight to curved and appressed to spreading; shrub or tree 2.5–13 m high. | subsp. leucoclada |
| Petiolar gland usually absent or if present inconspicuous; jugary glands absent or 1 inconspicuous gland at apex; interjugary glands 1 or sometimes 2 between successive or few pairs of pinnae; pinnules 0.4–0.9 mm wide; branchlets and foliage with conspicuously spreading crisped hairs; tree 4–20 m high. | subsp. argentifolia |
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