Acacia tetanophylla

The pungent shrub typically grows to a height of 0.6 to 2 metres (2 to 7 ft)[1] with hairy to glabrous branchlets. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The ascending to erect, rigid and grey-green phyllodes are usually straight and threadlike with a hexagonal cross-section when young. The glabrous phyllodes have a length of 15 to 40 mm (0.59 to 1.57 in) and a width of 1 to 1.5 mm (0.039 to 0.059 in)with a total of seven visible nerves.[2] It blooms from August to October and produces yellow flowers.[1] The simple inflorescences are composed of spherical flower-heads with a diameter of 3.5 to 4 mm (0.14 to 0.16 in) containing 13 to 18 usually golden coloured flowers. The firmly papery and glabrous seed pods that form after flowering usually have a linear to narrowly oblong shape with a length up to 4 cm (1.6 in) and a width of 2 to 4 mm (0.079 to 0.157 in). the pods contain shiny dark brown to black coloured seeds with an oblong-elliptic to ovate shape thar are 2.5 to 3 mm (0.098 to 0.118 in) in length.[2]

The species was first formally described by the botanist Bruce Maslin in 1977 as a part of the work Studies in the genus Acacia (Mimosaceae) - Miscellany as published in the journal Nuytsia. It was reclassified by Leslie Pedley in 2003 as Racosperma tetanophyllum then transferred back to genus Acacia in 2006.[3]

It is native to an area in the Great Southern, Goldfields-Esperance and Wheatbelt regions of Western Australia where it is commonly situated on plains along creeks and rivers growing in rock or sandy loams or sandy-clay or sandy soils often over or around granite.[1] The range extends from just south of the Stirling Range in the north-west out to around Ravensthorpe in the south east with outliers near Nyabing and Lake King both of which are further north.[2]

• List of Acacia species