Bastard mulga is a spreading, drought-tolerant tree or shrub from arid inland Australia, reaching about 5 m. It is a wild desert species rather than a common garden plant, so it suits dry, sunny, well-drained sites.
Family
Fabaceae (Pea & bean family)
Grows as
Tree, Shrub
Light
Full sun
Water
Water sparingly and let the soil dry out fully between waterings; it tolerates long dry spells.
Soil
Free-draining sandy or gravelly mix; tolerates stony, ironstone-based soils.
Temperature
Tolerates hot desert conditions; frost-sensitive, so protect below about 0 °C.
How easy
Moderate
Native range
Australia
Climate
desert or dry shrubland
About
Acacia sibirica, commonly known as bastard mulga or false witchetty bush, is a tree or shrub belonging to the genus Acacia and the subgenus Juliflorae. It is native to arid areas of Australia.
Where it grows
In it is found on rocky ridges, breakaways in skeletal sand soils in inland areas of all states of mainland Australia except Victoria. In Western Australia it is found in the Mid West, Pilbara and Goldfields-Esperance regions where it grows in stony red sandy-clay-loam soils over ironstone, basalt or laterite. In the Northern Territory it is found in the IBRA bioregions of Burt Plain, Central Ranges, Channel Country, Finke, Gibson Desert, Great Sandy Desert, Great Victoria Desert, Little Sandy Desert, MacDonnell Ranges, Mitchell Grass Downs, Mulga Lands, Pilbara, Simpson Strzelecki Dunefields, Stony Plains, and Tanami, and occurs on rocky or gravelly ranges, hills or rises composed of neutral or acidic rocks, sandplains, low sandy rises, dunefields, Mulga-dominated red earth plains, and creek floodouts.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Acacia sibirica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.