Acacia leptoloba, also known as Irvinebank wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to northern Queensland, Australia. It is a spreading shrub or tree with glabrous branchlets, narrowly elliptic, slightly curved, leathery phyllodes, spherical heads of white flowers, and thin, flat pods.
Description Acacia leptoloba is a spreading shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of and has a glabrous branchlets, sometimes covered in a fine white powdery coating. Its phyllodes are narrowly elliptic, slightly curved, long and wide with three main longitudinal veins. The flowers are borne in spherical heads in racemes long on glabrous peduncles long, each head about in diameter with 40 to 75 white flowers. Flowering occurs between December and April, and the pods are thin, flat, up to long and about wide and glabrous. The seeds are long with a cup-shaped aril.
Taxonomy Acacia leptoloba was first formally described in 1978 by Leslie Pedley in the journal Austrobaileya from a specimen collected south of Laura River, south-west of Cooktown in 1975.
Distribution and habitat This species of wattle has a scattered distribution from Cape York Peninsula to Herberton in north Queensland, where it grows on hills and along streams in sandy soils. The plant is quite common around the Irvinebank area.
See also List of Acacia species
References