Acacia Id Please - Floribunda??

[Mycelia]

Can someone help ID this acacia, unforuntatly it is not in flower which makes things a little hard. it was found on the mornington peninsula area in VIC and I think it may be floribunda but am not sure. if someone can confirm that would be great.

[tonic]

Looks a lot like Acacia floribunda. Mine is coming into flower right now.

[Seldom]

check the vein running down the center of the phyllode, it's not a floribunda, i'd say Acacia retinodes

[tonic]

According to World Wide Wattle, A. retinodes occurs in S.A only while A. floribunda does occur in VIC (naturalised) I agree with you on the fact that is probably not A. floribunda, due to the fact that it appears to have one main vein, which in not a characteristic of A.floribunda, it's phyllodes usually have three veins longitudinally.

Then again it might be an out of area A. retinodes?

Thanks for pointing that out, I missed that on first inspection.

@OP, be really helpful to get pics of flowers to show if it has spike or ball flowers.

Edited March 11, 2012 by tonic

[Mycelia]

I think as it was a young tree you can really only see the main vein through the phyllode. I have taken another close up picture attached if you look closely you can see 3 veins..... the 2nd photo is another tree which I think is a Floribunda which was found about 15 minutes drive away from the first specimen. the 2nd tree was more mature and is starting to come into flower. let me know your thoughts.

[LokStok]

your pics of post #1 look very much like the phyllodes of my young (<6mnth) A. floribundas.

your 1st pic of post#5, is i think as well, but the 2nd..............not sure. if i had to make a call, well... no

Edited March 11, 2012 by LokStok

[tonic]

Odd, the second pic in the latter post has flower buds (spike) as does mine, but it is supposed to flower June-September, though have seen lots of plants flowering out of season this year. I still reckon it looks a lot like A. floribunda. The flowers buds look right the phyllodes look pretty good.

[LokStok]

yeah man, my hesitance with the 2nd pic is more of a feeling based mainly around the phyllode shape. I agree, anything is possible with a year (climatically) like

this one.

*edit-canna spell good ona sunday arvo

Edited March 11, 2012 by LokStok

[Seldom]

yeh those spikes look like floribunda. it's one of the Acacias without a gland on the leaf, so that'd also be an indicator

[planthelper]

i noticed something with a very special acacia, and that is, that the shape and the character of this acacia can change a lot, regarding where it grows (climat, soil, water).

at least this acacia, but probably others aswell, for example get narrow phyllodes instead of wide ones. less water, more stress, means smaller more narrow phyllodes!

i think this would make id'ing aswell much harder, not to say, it's happening with above acacia.

[tonic]

I wholeheartedly agree on that point PH. A lot of variation can be seen on the Acacia genera as a whole, as you say. I know of a stand of A. obtusifolia that bears so much similarity to A. longifolia (though it's definitely not) mainly due to the fact that it is on a western slope and gets a lot of afternoon heat and sun all year round. The phyllodes are extremely tough and a bit more compact (photomorphogenesis) and in comparison to one I grew out from seed in the ground where I am, which has much lusher growth, but is extremely tall and leans out for the sun on a southerly slope (phototropism) hunting for all the light.

I digress, but just shows a good example of the variations apparent due to environmental/climatic/nutrient/water/soil/light differences. I should get some pics to show just how different they can be. The A. obtusifolia on the Western slope had staggered flowering in it's season, but now has decided to throw out some sporadic blooms.

I think this will apply to many genera of plants, but seems to be an obvious factor in Acacia. Thus making difficulties in terms of ID.

[Mycelia]

Upon further inspections and hunting today I have found an area in which the floribundas seems rife most are starting to flower so must be the weird weather we have been having. The photo of the tree with the longer phyllodes was surrounded by weeping wattles so I ink that may explain the longer phyllode with lack of water/sun. PHs point makes perfect sense. Would be interested to see your pics of your varying obtus trees tonic.

[chilli]

thanks for that BoP I have a couple of what I thought were floribunda growing but some pics I have been seen have been making me wonder.

Bliss, when you hold the phyllode up to the sun can you see three veins? mine are easily visible this way