Family

Fabaceae

Distribution

Discontinuous, occurring near Coolgardie, Adalong Stn (c. 150 km N of Coolgardie) and in the Great Victoria Desert from Mt Luck E to Plumridge Lakes, W.A.

Description

Phyllodes 8-nerved (the nerves ±equal width), ±appressed-hairy in the shallow discrete grooves between the nerves. Peduncles commonly 2 per axil, substout or rather slender, 0.4–0.6 mm diam., smooth or longitudinally ridged, resinous or not, glabrous to subdensely sericeous and with or without varying intermixtures of red resin-hairs. Sepals c. 0.5–0.8 mm long, 1/4–2/5 length of petals.

Habitat

Grows in yellow sand and red loamy sand, in scrub and tall shrubland, or (desert populations) in red sand in open mallee over Triodia sp. (Spinifex).

Specimens

W.A.: Doney Lagoon, Adalong Stn, R.J.Cranfield 7584 (MEL, PERTH); 19 km W of Coolgardie on Great Eastern Hwy, B.R.Maslin 4822 (CANB, K, MEL, PERTH); Great Victoria Desert, c. 60 km NW of Plumridge Lakes, B.R.Maslin 5717 (MO, NSW, PERTH).

Notes

As discussed by R.S.Cowan & B.R.Maslin, Nuytsia 10: 33 (1995), there appears to be two distinct entities included within var. desertorum as currently defined: specimens from the Great Victoria Desert have peduncles similar to those of var. nudipes whereas the peduncles on plants occurring around Coolgardie are rather slender (0.4–0.5 mm diam.), resinous, smooth or very obscurely longitudinally ridged and glabrous to sparsely sericeous with varying intermixtures of red resin-hairs. There are also slight flower differences between the two entities.

Some specimens from the Victoria Spring Nature Reserve (south-west extremity of the Great Victoria Desert) appear to combine characters of A. desertorum var. desertorum and A. heteroneura var. jutsonii.

FOA Reference

Data derived from Flora of Australia Volumes 11A (2001), 11B (2001) and 12 (1998), products of ABRS, ©Commonwealth of Australia

Author

R.S.Cowan, B.R.Maslin