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Acacia verticillata (L'Heérit.) Willd.

Modern name

Acacia verticillata (L'Her.) Willd.

Synonyms

Mimosa verticillata L'Heérit.

An evergreen shrub up to 30 ft high of dense habit; young shoots distinctly and angularly ridged, downy. Phyllodes mostly arranged in whorls (verticillate), usually about six in a whorl; linear, awl-shaped, prickly pointed; 13 to 58 in. long, 120 to 112 in. wide; dark green, not downy, with a prominent midrib. Flowers clear bright yellow, closely packed in bottle-brush-like spikes 12 to 118 in. long and 14 to 13 in. wide, each spike springing from the axil of a phyllode on a downy stalk 18 to 12 in. long. Pods slender, 112 to 2 in. long, 16 in. wide, often curved or even sickle-shaped, sprinkled with pale hairs. Bot. Mag., t. 110.

Native of Australia (Victoria) and Tasmania; introduced by Sir Joseph Banks to Kew in 1780. There was once a very healthy plant at Lanarth in Cornwall, which reached a height of 20 ft and as much in spread, and bloomed in April and May. It is very beautiful every spring in the Australian House at Kew and is distinct among the acacias here described by the short prickly ‘leaves’ being arranged in whorls, but there are several other species in the genus that are similar in that respect.


Genus

Acacia

Other species in the genus