Acacia mearnsii De Wild., 1925

Verloove, Filip, 2021, New records in vascular plants alien to Tenerife (Spain, Canary Islands), Biodiversity Data Journal 9, pp. 62878-62878 : 62878

Acacia mearnsii De Wild., 1925

Acacia mearnsii Pl. Bequaert. 3(1): 62-63. 1925.

Distribution

TENERIFE: Tegueste, Camino Urb. Las Rosetas close to TF-154 road, shrubland, 18.01.2017, F. Verloove 13419 (BR). https://observation.org/observation/204629675/

Notes

This species is a native of south-eastern Australia, but introduced into many countries for utilisation purposes (mostly as an ornamental shrub). It easily reproduces and, like other acacias, is often considered to be an invasive species ( Miller et al. 2011, Luque et al. 2014).

In Tenerife, Acacia dealbata is a naturalised shrub, although some records doubtlessly refer to A. mearnsii instead. The latter superficially resembles A. dealbata . It is recognised by its green and shiny foliage (vs. foliage bluish-grey with lustrous leaflets), cream flowers (vs. bright yellow flowers) (Fig. 1 ) and pods softly appressed grey-pubescent to velutinous (vs. pods glabrous). Furthermore, in A. dealbata , there is only a single gland at the base of the pinnae, whereas in A. mearnsii on at least some leaves, multiple glands are present between the pinnae ( Maslin et al. 2019).

In Tegueste, Acacia mearnsii was probably initially planted a long time ago and now survives. In the same place, a single individual was also observed of A. decurrens (see earlier).

Figures

Figure 1. Acacia mearnsii, Tegueste, January 2019. Compared with A. dealbata, this species has a green, shiny foliage and cream flowers.