Acacia crombiei, commonly known as pink gidgee,
Description
Acacia crombiei is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to and has twisted, glabrous branchlets. The phyllodes are narrowly linear, straight to slightly curved, mostly long, wide, narrowed at both ends and leathery with the midrib and edge veins prominent. There is an oblong to more or less linear gland long, up to above the base of the phyllode. The flowers are borne in up to four spherical heads on peduncles long. Flowering has been recorded in April, May, August and October and the pods are narrowly oblong, firmly papery to thinly leathery, up to long and wide with knob-like protruberances along the midline. The seeds are oblong to widely elliptic, dark brown and slightly shiny, long and wide.
This species of wattle is reported to have a habit that is similar in appearance to Acacia cana or Acacia cambagei.
Taxonomy
Acacia crombiei was first formally described in 1942 by Cyril Tenison White in
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland from specimens collected near
Longreach by "J. Crombie" in 1940.
The
specific epithet ("crombiei") honours the collector of the type specimens.
Distribution and habitat
This species of wattle grows in small, isolated populations around the small town of Muttaburra to around Elmore Station north of Richmond in central Queensland.
[ It has been collected as far south as around Winton north over a distance of to around Greenvale. The species occurs in an area of around with 15 sub-populations with an estimated total population of about 20,000 individual plants.][J.L. Silcock, A.J. Healy and R.J. Fensham, (2014) Lost in time and space: re-assessment of conservation status in an arid-zone flora through targeted field survey,
Australian Journal of Botany, 2014, 62, 674–688.] It is usually part of on wooded downs or in open woodland communities often associated with Acacia cambagei and Atalaya hemiglauca growing in alluvial soils over and around sandstone and basalt.
Conservation status
Acacia crombiei was declared as vulnerable in accordance with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in 2008.
See also
