I'm new to identifying trees and need to identify the acacia maidenii so any helpful hints are appreciated. Anyway, these leaves seem to fit all the descriptions i have read, and I compared them to some photo's, they all seemed to match, especially these ones: http://shaman-australis.com.au/Website/Pictures/small/Acaciamaidenii2Thu.jpg http://users.lycaeum.org/~mulga/images/maid.jpg Here are my photo's of a small section of leaves i clipped today: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/maidenii.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/maidenii2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/maidenii3.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/maidenii4.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/maidenii5.jpg So what do you guys think? If these photo's look promising, i'll be sure to get some of the actual tree tommorrow. They are not in flower at this time of year, at least I don't beleive so, so the easily idetifiable yellow flowerings aren't there :(
got some more photos today. it was flowering a lil. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m3.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m4.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m7.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m8.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m10.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m11.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m12.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m13.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m14.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/surfgrommit/m15.jpg
Hello Mardy, Congratulations for doing a very thorough job. I think you have it nailed as A. maidenii. The spikes of cream (not yellow) flowers in summer-autumn are characteristic, as are the rather thin-textured, curved phyllodes and scaly grey bark. An additional feature you might look for is very fine, whitish hairs on the young stems -- you really need a lens to see them clearly. The only other species in the Sydney region with phyllodes and cream summer flowers like this is A. obtusifolia but that's mainly in the mountains and has much thicker leaves that tend to be flushed dull purplish.
Awesome. I was a bit confused because most sites say the maidenii will have pods and this one didn't, unless those weird brown balls were pods. I suppose the pods are not always there then. Hmm, anyway thanks, I was looking for a second opinion because this is my first time ever identifying a tree. Thankyou again!
The "weird brown balls" are probably galls, a type of disease. In acacias they are said to be caused by a fungus, Uromycladium, but that's not something I know much about.
