FoI
Australian Blackwood
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Australian Blackwood
aturalized Photo: Dinesh Valke
Common name: Australian Blackwood, Sally Wattle, Lightwood, Hickory, Mudgerabah, Tasmanian Blackwood, Black Wattle • Kannada: ಜಾಲಿ jaali • Tamil: சீமைவேல் chimaivel
Botanical name: Acacia melanoxylon    Family: Mimosaceae (Touch-me-not family)
Synonyms: Acacia arcuata, Acacia melanoxylum, Mimosa melanoxylon, Mimosa melanoxylum

Australian Blackwood is an erect or spreading tree 6-30 m tall. Bark is deeply fissured, dark gray-black, branchlets angled or flattened, hairy or hairless. Leaves (phyllodes actually) are narrowly elliptic to inverted-lanceshaped, straight or somewhat sickleshaped, 6-14 cm long, 0.7-3 cm wide, hairless, 3-5 or more longitudinal veins prominent, prominently net-veined in between, tip pointed to blunt, with a small point. There is 1 gland near base. Inflorescences occur 2-8 in racemes in leaf axils. Axis is 2.5-8 cm long; peduncles 5-20 mm long, hairy. Flower-heads are spherical, 30–50-flowered, 5-10 mm in diameter, pale yellow to white. Pods are strongly curved or twisted or coiled, biconvex, usually straight-sided to slightly constricted between seeds, 4-12 cm long, 5-8 mm wide, firmly papery, smooth, glabrous. Seeds are longitudinal, funicle orange to reddish, folded and surrounding seed. Australian Blackwood is native to Australia, but now natualized on all continents. Flowering: July-December.

Identification credit: Dinesh Valke
Photographed in Ooty, Tamil Nadu.
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