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#1728 - Acacia longifolia - Longleaf Wattle

AKA Sydney Golden Wattle, acacia trinervis, aroma doble, golden wattle, coast wattle, sallow wattle.

Acacias are grow in cultivation in many parts of the world (over 2 million hectares at lastcount), since so many of the species are drought tolerant and they fix their own nitrogen. Unfortunately, those same properties mean that tey can also escape cultivation and become a weed, or just hitch a lift to new areas and take over. 

That has been the case with this species, which is native to coastal Southeastern Australia but has become an increasing problem in bushland here in the west, as well as in other parts of the eastern states, as well as in New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Portugal and Brazil. It grows rapidly, easily reaching 8m in 5 years. 

Acacia longifolia is cultivated in subtropical regions of the world for prevention of soil erosion, food (flowers, seeds and seed pods), yellow dye (from the flowers), green dye (pods) and wood. In Tasmania the ripening pods have been roasted and the seeds removed and eaten. In Africa, where it’s a major pest, a gall-forming Australian wasp has been introduced and seems to be working quite well. 

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#1729 - Acacia huegelii

Named after Carl Alexander Anselm, Baron von Hugel (1796 – 1870), an Austrian traveler and naturalist who visited the Swan River and King George Sound in 1833.

Another SW endemic, growing up to a meter tall. Remarkably hairy for a wattle, but also distinguished by the asymmetrically triangular phyllodes. The flowers are cream coloured rather than the usual yellow of other wattles. 

Found on low ridges, flats and sand dunes growing in lateritic gravel or sandy soils, often as part of Banksia or Eucalyptus woodlands or other open forest communities, but in south western areas it appears in dune swales with Agonis flexuosa and species of Kunzea. This one was growing in open woodland near The Spectacles lakes, in Perth.

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#1730 - Acacia saligna - Golden Wreath Wattle

AKA Acacia bracteata, Acacia cyanophylla, Acacia lindleyi, Mimosa saligna, and Racosperma salignum, coojong, orange wattle, blue-leafed wattle, Western Australian golden wattle, willow wattle, western wattle, and, in Africa, Port Jackson willow. Port Jackson is at the other end of Australia. 

It grows rapidly, up to 6m high. The phyllodes can be up to 25cm long, and there’s a nectary at the base of each leaf that attracts ants. Ants also collect and distribute the seeds. 

Originally found in Western Australia, over a wide but discontinous range, but now found in semi-arid areas in many parts of the world, as well as over in the Eastern states, where it has become a major weed. In South Africa, some control has been achieved using an Australian fungus, and Australian weevils. It has been planted for tanning, revegetation, animal fodder, mine site rehabilitation, firewood, mulch, agroforestry and as a decorative plant.

These ones were growing in Wannanup, but practically every new subdivision and empty lot in Perth will have some show up, sooner or later.

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#1732 - Acacia cochlearis - Rigid Wattle

While the focus in this photo is on the unidentified galls, the leaves are distinctive enough to identify the host - a shrub wattle up to 3m tall, growing in sandy soils in coastal areas on sandplains and sand dunes. Found from Lancelin to Israelite Bay, where it is found growing as solitary plants or in dense thickets - it certainly does all of that in the places I’ve seen it.

It flowers from July to October, with the flower heads spherical and yellow, and not easily distinguished from the majority of other wattles. 

Rigid Wattle was first formally described by the botanist Jacques Labillardière in 1807 as Mimosa cochlearis as part of the work Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen. It was then reclassifed as an Acacia by Heinrich Wendland in 1820 as part of the work Commentatio de Acaciis aphyllis,  reclassified again in 2003 by Leslie Pedley as Racosperma cochleare then transferred back to genus Acacia in 2006 in that controversial taxonomic decision I’ve mentioned elsewhere. 

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#1472 - Acacia lasiocarpa - Glow Wattle

AKA  Panjang or Pajang

A small spiny shrub, generally under 50cm tall and a meter wide, that flowers prolifically. Endemic to the SW corner, again,growing in seasonally damp areas, in and around swamps, and on flats and coastal dunes, in a variety of soils. This one was growing next to the freeway at Wandi.

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#1731 - Acacia extensa -  Wiry Wattle

A wattle that’s taken leaf reduction to extremes. The phyllodes don’t even resemble leaves. A shrub that grows up to 2 meters in height, and native to the southwest prefering sandy or sandy lateritic soils in damp areas along water courses or near lakes and swamps. This one was growing on the side of the road in Ambergate Reserve near Busselton. 

Generally adaptable in cultivation, grown from scarified or lightly boiled seed.  Responds to sunny, reasonably well drained positions in most soils.

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#2167 - Acacia pycnantha - Golden Wattle 

Alas not in bloom - see Melburnian's photo below.

Australia's floral emblem, and now a weed in some parts of Australia, and overseas in Africa and Europe. Native to the SE of the country. As well as being an iconic Australian plant, grown commercially for the ludicrous amounts of tannin in the bark.

Golden Wattle grows as an understorey plant in Eucalyptus forest, to a height of 8 metres (26 feet). Instead of true leaves it has flattened leaf stalks called phyllodes. The profuse fragrant golden flowers are pollinated by honeyeaters and thornbills, which are actually visiting extrafloral nectaries on the phyllodes and only pick up pollen by accident.

Of course, whether Australia's wattles should actually be in the genus Acacia is a botantical controversy - over the last two decades proposals were made to split Acacia into three - Acacia, Senegalia, and a third which would encompass pretty much all 940 Australian species — named Racosperma. That change would have been annoying enough - instead a vote was taken at the 2005 International Botanical Congress in Vienna to let the Australian species keep the name Acacia, when by all rights the African species had priority. Acacias are just as iconic there, too.

But the change has stuck, and now the range of plants-formerly-known as Acacia is quite complex.

Acacia. Australia & Pacific: 1,077 species; Asia: 12 species Acaciella. Americas: 12 Mariosousa. Americas: 13 Parasenegalia. Americas: 11 Pseudosenegalia. Americas: 2 Senegalia: Americas: 96; Africa: 62; Asia: 56; Australia & Pacific: 2 Vachellia: Africa: 72; Americas: 61; Asia: 33; Australia & Pacific: 9

(Info from WorldWideWattle )

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#944 - Callitris endlicheri - Black Cypress

A native conifer. Apparently it’s not uncommon, but the area around The Rock is the only place I’ve seen them growing so thickly. That might be because it prefers ridges, plateaux, hills and tablelands, and is usually found on relatively shallow stony soils, often on steep slopes. That was certainly the case here.

Black Cypress has been successfully cultivated overseas, particularly in African countries, where despite initial slow growth and vulnerability to fires it is valued for its durability and termite resistance, and has been used as fencing, flooring, panelling, furniture, charcoal and fuel-wood.

The Rock, NSW

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dawn on the high road by liam.jon_d sunrise in the ranges adjacent to the trezona campgroiund

ikara - flinders ranges national park, south australia https://flic.kr/p/2o9pgJR

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#2166 - Callitris glaucophylla - White Cypress-Pine

AKA white cypress-pine, Murray River cypress-pine, and northern cypress-pine.

Another native cypress. Some authors split it into three species - Callitris columellaris on coastal northeast New South Wales, southeast Queensland, Callitris glaucophylla throughout most of the southern half of Australia, and Callitris intratropica in northern Queensland, northern Northern Territory, northern Western Australia. C. columellaris, assuming it's a legitimate species or even subspecies, is naturalised in Hawaii and Florida.

Pollen release is explosive - hundreds of cones cracking open at once, and spraying the brown pollen up to a meter as the entire tree trembles.

Willans Hill, Wagga Wagga, NSW

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Wishing everyone a special and safe festive season. This eastern grey kangaroo mother (Macropus giganteus) reminds me of all the weary parents who can't wait for school to go back! It's been an amazingly good season, and the desert is green and lush. The rough burr-daisy burrs (Calotis scabiosifolia) adorning the mother's coat are evidence of the verdant growth and successful flowering of the shrubs and forbs of the forest understorey. While they look terrible, these large sticky burrs are very soft and fall apart easily - they pose no danger to wildlife as they hitch a lift to new territories on the coats of native animals and humans alike.

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#2165 - Calotis cuneifolia -

Purple Burr-Daisy

AKA Australian Wedgeleaf. Synonyms for the genus - mostly Australian, and two in Asia, are Cheiroloma, Goniopogon and Tolbonia.

A native to Australia, but also found in Massachusetts, where it may have been imported as a ornamental, or arrived as burrs stuck on livestock.

Widespread in Eastern and Central Australia, and growing up to 60cms tall, with blue or purple flowers.

Willans Hill, Wagga Wagga, NSW

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#635 - Dicranosterna hemisphaerica - Another Paropsine

Another paropsine! With the dark band across the top of the head, and the brown fringe to his elytra (not really visible from above, unfortunately) and the interesting blue-grey and cream patterning on the rest of him, I’m wondering if he’s pretending to be a tree cockroach. Those, too, are distasteful to eat, iirc, which would make this Müllerian mimicry, where two unrelated species converge on the same warning sign.

There were a pair of these mating when I found them, but one of them dropped to the ground before I could get my phone out, leaving this one to stomp around muttered aggrievedly to itself.

Baldivis, Perth

EDIT: Ten years later, I finaly have an ID -  Dicranosterna hemisphaerica, found on the very western coastline of Australia, where it presumably feeds on Acacia. Variable in appearence - they have more or fewer spots - some have none.