Daviesia acicularis

A small and wiry shrub, typically to 1 metre high with an erect narrow habit.

It has a large natural geographic distribution; in NSW – growing from the south coast, south of Eden in Ben Boyd / Beowa National Park, northwards in a patchy distribution and moving into the very east of the southern tablelands, as well as Wollongong and Sydney. It then stretches west as far as near Grenfell on the central western slopes and the distribution spreads north-north-west from here through the western slopes, tablelands and coast (out to Dubbo / Pilliga Scrub) to the Queensland border. In the very north of the State, plants are found as far west as near Enngonia. It extends into Queensland, from here to the coast, as far north as the latitude of (and near) Springsure, extending to Fraser Island.

It is typically found in dry sclerophyll forest, woodland and shrubland on sandy soils, usually over sandstone, or on sandy plains.

Daviesia spp. have simple leaves modified to phyllodes or rigid scales, arranged alternately. In this species, the phyllodes are subulate to linear or narrow-elliptic, to narrow elliptic, to about 50 mm long and 4 mm wide, with an aristate apex and sharp points / mucros; with the edges curved downwards or rolled under and a prominent mid-vein on the upper surface; mid green in colour and with scattered small teeth on the margins.

Daviesia spp. have pea-flowers (papilionate) which are 5-merous but with the typical pea setup where there is one large rear petal called the “standard”, two fused bottom petals called the “keel” and two lateral petals called “wings”. In this species, the flowers are to 7 mm long and arranged singly in leaf axils, on a peduncle to 2 mm long; yellow to orange with dark red markings and with a dark red keel; occurring from August (in the north of the range) to October (in the southof the range).

Flowers are followed by distinctive triangular pods in Daviesia spp. In this species,the pods are to 9 mm long by 7 mm wide.