Acacia saligna

Willow Leaf Wattle (Acacia saligna ) - habitus

The Willow Leaf Wattle (Acacia saligna ) is a plant of the genus Acacia (Acacia ). It is native to southwestern Australia, but has spread widely as a neophyte in South Africa and directed there to great harm. Recently, attempts have been made, the way to use as an energy crop.

Description

The willow leaf acacia is reached a bushy shrub or tree, the plant height between two and six meters. The branches are often drooping, curved, glabrous and covered with young plants with a whitish dust. The bark is gray, it contains about 30.3% tannins.

The foliage leaves of the petiole is enlarged and assumes the function of the leaf blade, called phyllodes. You are droopy and variable in shape and size. The shape is linear to lanceolate, curved or straight, and between seven and 25 centimeters long and four to 20 millimeters wide. Towards the ground, the leaves are larger. They are green to gray- green, frosted, glabrous with a prominent mid-vein. There is a one to two millimeters wide gland that secretes sugary nectar at the base of each Phyllodiums.

The inflorescences are five to twenty -headed panicles, which are encased in their youth of overlapping bracts. Each panicle carries 15 to 55 golden yellow flowers. The flowers are fünfzählig and sit at 5 to 15 mm long pedicles.

After flowering form linealische sleeves that are eight to twelve millimeters long and four to six millimeters wide. They are constricted between the seeds. The seeds are dark brown to black. They are oblong, elliptic to ovate and five to six millimeters long.

Dissemination

Willow leaf - acacia make no great demands on their site, but seem to avoid high altitudes. Preferably, a deep, sandy soil in moist areas, such as rivers or streams, lakeshores or in marshes, but also at the base of granite quarries or in the dunes on the coast. The soil can be acidic or alkaline. The species has a moderate salt tolerance.

The natural range is in southwestern Australia, where it ranges from the Murchison River in the north to the southeast to the vicinity of Esperance on the south coast. However, they lack the very south in the region around Albany.

Neophyte occurrence

The willow leaf wattle was introduced in 1840 by people in South Africa. Plantings should stabilize the sand dunes on the Cape Flats near Cape Town. Today, the species is considered the most dangerous invasive plant in the Western Cape.

Gackeltrappen eat the seeds of the willow leaf acacia and contribute substantially to its spread at.

Meanwhile also a Rostpilzart Uromycladium tepperianum and weevils of the genus Melanterius were introduced to the ever growing population of the willow leaf acacia to master.

System

The French botanist Jacques Julien de Houtou Labillardiere described the plant in 1806 under the name Mimosa saligna. The German botanist Heinrich Ludolph Wendland referred to this basionym, but the type associated with the name Acacia saligna in the genus Acacia; its first description was published in 1820.

Other synonyms for the type Acacia cyanophylla Lindl. and Racosperma salignum ( Labill. ) Pedley.

Ecology

The willow leaf acacia lives in symbiosis with nodule bacteria ( Rhizobiaceae ) and thus can fix nitrogen from the air. You can conquer new habitats very quickly, as the young plants grow very quickly.

The seeds are spread by ants, which they carry in their nests and eat the seed stalk. The seeds can take a long time until the soil is disturbed and germinate the seeds. Thus, the way forest fires are good about.

The phyllodes of the plant are eaten by caterpillars, for example, the line hawkmoth ( Hyles livornica ).

Benefit

The fast-growing species is often planted to stabilize the soil or to provide windbreak hedges. You will be happy cultivated in gardens because of the yellow flowers.

The wood of the willow leaf acacia is traditionally used as firewood and for charcoal production. Since 2000, attempts to use the fast -growing plant for biodiesel production run; should include the cultures were developed in the Mediterranean and harvesters. The rapid growth - it created between 1.5 and 10 cubic meters of biomass per hectare per year - the ideal type for this purpose. However, the wood is light and very moist, which makes processing more difficult.

The phyllodes of the willow leaf acacia are very eagerly eaten by sheep.