About

Acacia longifolia, commonly known as Sydney golden wattle or sallow wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-east of mainland Australia. It is a shrub or erect, spreading tree with glabrous branchlets, elliptic to very narrowly elliptic phyllodes, spikes of usually golden yellow flowers and straight to strongly twisted, leathery pods, sometimes appearing like a string of beads. It is sometimes considered an invasive species in other places.

How to grow it

Despite its weed potential outside its normal range, the shrub is available commercially and can be propagated by seed scarification or boiling water treatment. It is regarded as an attractive, hardy, fast-growing species suitable as a hedge plant or for screening. Suitable for hydroseeding work on banks where it will provide soil stabilization. Sydney golden wattle is well suited for low maintenance areas such as road batters, will grow in a range of soil types and is frost hardy. It is heavily used at present in Southern California as a street canopy tree, as it grows fairly quickly (reaching a height of five meters within a year or two of planting), tolerates drought, and is resilient even to the particularly brutal pruning practices associated with low-cost tree services.

In Portugal the species is considered highly invasive in sand dunes, and its cultivation is prohibited by law.

Safety

Kaempferol (3,4′,5,7-tetrahydroxyflavone)

N-(2-imidazol-4-yl-ethyl)-trans-cinnamamide

Where it grows

This species of Acacia is native to southeastern Australia, from the extreme southeast of Queensland, through eastern New South Wales, eastern and southern Victoria, southeastern South Australia, and Tasmania. The species is endemic to coastal area of south eastern Queensland close to the border with New South Wales extending southward down the coast of New South Wales. In New South Wales it is common along the tablelands and coastal areas where it grows in various habitats including foredunes and in sclerophyll woodland or coastal heath and scrub. The range then extends south and east through Victoria and into South Australia, where it is found on the Eyre Peninsula, Yorke Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, southern Mount Lofty Ranges, and throughout the south-eastern region, where it is mostly restricted to sand dunes. The subspecies, sophorae, grows in sand dunes around the Tasmanian coastline.

Uses

Acacia longifolia is widely cultivated in subtropical regions of the world. Its uses include prevention of soil erosion, food (flowers, seeds and seed pods), yellow dye (from the flowers), green dye (pods) and wood. The flower colour derives from the organic compound kaempferol. The tree's bark has limited use in tanning, primarily for sheepskin. It is useful for securing uninhabited sand in coastal areas, primarily where there are not too many hard frosts. In Tasmania the ripening pods were roasted and the seeds removed and eaten.

Other Acacia plants

Acacia abbatiana · Acacia abbreviata · Acacia abrupta · Acacia acanthaster · Harrow Wattle · Acacia acellerata · Gold-dust acacia · Acacia aciphylla · Acacia acoma · Acacia acradenia · Strap Leaved Wattle · Acacia acuaria