Acacia asperulacea

Acacia asperulacea is a shrub belonging to the genus Acacia and the subgenus Lycopodiifoliae.

Description
The small spreading shrub typically grows to a height of 0.2 to 1 m. It blooms in May and produces yellow flowers. The phyllodes are arranged in whorls each with 10 to 14 phyllodes. Each phyllode is slightly flattened and straight or slightly recurved and from 5 to 14 mm in length. Each flower head contains 15 to 30 flowers. The seed pods that form later are linear and glabrose with thickened margins. Each pod is 30 to 35 mm long and 6 mm wide and contains 3 mm long longitudinally oblique seeds.

A. asperulacea typically lives to an age of 11 to 20 years and is able to produce seeds after three years.

Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in 1859 as part of the work Contributiones ad Acaciarum Australiae Cognitionem as published in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Botany. Several synonyms for the plant are known including Acacia lycopodiifolia var. glabrescens by George Bentham, Acacia galioides var. asperulacea by Karel Domin and Racosperma asperulaceum by Leslie Pedley.

Distribution
It is native to an area in the eastern Kimberley region of Western Australia where it grows in skeletal soils. Its range extends to the east into the Northern Territory and to far north west Queensland.