Acacia frigescens

Acacia frigescens, commonly known as montane wattle, frosted wattle or forest wattle is a shrub or tree of the genus Acacia and the subgenus Plurinerves. It is native to an area in south eastern Australia.

Description
The shrub typically grows to a height of 3 to 15 m and has reasonably smooth bark and glabrous branchlets. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The grey-green, leathery phyllodes have a narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate-elliptic shape with a length of 7 to 16 cm and a width of 1.5 to 5 cm and have three to five main longitudinal nerves.

Taxonomy
The species was first formally described by the botanist James Hamlyn Willis in 1957 as part of the work Vascular flora of Victoria and South Australia (sundry new species, varieties, combinations, records and synonymies) as published in the journal The Victorian Naturalist. It was reclassified as Racosperma frigescens in 2003 then transferred back to genus Acacia in 2006.

Distribution
It has a limited distribution in subalpine and montane areas in the east Gippsland region of Victoria from the north east of Melbourne to around Mount Coopracambra where it usually is part of the understorey in tall Eucalyptus forest communities often including Eucalyptus regnans.