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Acacia baueri is a small shrub to 1 m tall, with a decumbent to spreading habit with hairy and warty branches.
It grows mainly along the coast, north from the Illawarra Region of NSW, up into Qld. Restricted to the Sydney region, occurring on the Kings Tableland in the central Blue Mountains and with sporadic occurrences on the Woronora Plateau in the Royal National Park.
Occurs in open damp heathlands and often on exposed rocky outcrops.
The phyllodes (modified leaves) are about 15 mm long to 1 mm wide, scattered or in irregular whorls, with a green-greyish colour and sometimes sparsely hairy.
Flowers produced in globular heads, to 5 mm in diameter, bright yellow, with one head produced per leaf axil. Each head can contain up to 20 very small, staminate flowers. Flowers mainly in September to June,
Pod to 30 mm long and 4 mm wide.
A. baueri is not widely grown but is a useful small shrub for coastal areas. It is reliable in a range of soils and can tolerate some inundation. It flowers best in full sun or dappled shade.
A useful plant for smaller gardens.
Acacias can suffer from a number of pests, including borers, scale, galls and leaf miners. Growing plants suitable to your local environment minimises these occurring.
Propagation is easy from scarified seed by covering with boiling water for 24 hours and discarding any seeds still floating on the surface.
There are two subspecies recognised:
– subsp. baueri – which grows mainly along the NSW North Coast subdivision and has phyllodes in regular whorls
– subsp. aspera – restricted to the Blue Mountains area and has very pronounced warty branches. This subspecies is listed as threatened in NSW, with the category of vulnerable.
Most wattles will die in a fire and regenerate from seed. Some species exhibit suckering from basal parts and roots.
Acacia is a highly diverse genus, with over 1500 recognised species (placing it in the top-10 most-diverse plant genera) occurring in most continents except for Europe. Australia has about 970 spp., most of which are endemic. There are also about 10 exotic species. NSW has about 235 recognised species. Some species have become weeds in other states outside of their natural range (e.g., wattles from Western Australia into NSW and vice versa).
Acacia – from Greek Akakia – which refers to an Ancient Greek preparation made from one of the many species; the name of which derives from akis, meaning “thorn” – referring to the thorns of species in Africa.
baueri – in Honour of the botanical artist Ferdinand Lukas Bauer (1760-1826), who was appointed botanical draughtsman to Matthew Flinder’s expedition.
The taxon subsp. baueri is not considered to be at risk of extinction in the wild.
NSW Office of Environment and Heritage – Threatened Species Profiles – Acacia baueri subsp. aspera. https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedSpeciesApp/profile.aspx?id=10005
NSW Flora Online (PlantNET) – Acacia baueri profile page https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Acacia~baueri