WILLOW-LEAVED WATTLE

Acacia iteaphylla, commonly known as Flinders Range wattle, Port Lincoln wattle, winter wattle and willow-leaved wattle, is a shrub belonging to the genus Acacia and the subgenus Phyllodineae that is endemic to South Australia.

The shrub has a weeping habit and typically grows to a height of 2 to 5 metres with a crown width of 2 to 5 m. Young plants are glabrous and have greenish coloured bark that later becomes brown in colour as the plant ages. The slender grey-green foliage has pink-red tips of new growth. The long slender phyllodes are arranged alternately and have a prominent single vein running lengthwise and grow up to 10 centimetres in length.

It produces yellow flowers from March to September (Autumn through to Spring). The flowers are arranged into small spherical clusters that are found in short compound clusters in the phyllode forks. The flower heads have a diameter of 5 to 8 millimetres and contain 12 to 17 pale to lemon yellow flowers. The thin leathery light brown seed pods that form following flowering are elongated and flat usually 5 to 13 centimetres in length and 6 to 12 mm wide. The pods contain hard black ellipsoidal shaped seeds that are 6 mm in length and half as wide.

The shrub is sold commercially for cultivation in seedling or in seed form. It can take full sun or partial shade, can grow in saline soils and is frost tolerant and drought tolerant once established. Used in gardens as an ornamental screen or as a low windbreak, as it is fast growing and has attractive foliage. The best known cultivar of A. iteaphylla is a low-growing form called Acacia "Parsons Cascade". Seeds need to be scarified or treated with boiling water prior to planting.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme