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Acacia hakeoides is a shrub or potentially a tree reaching 6 m tall, spreading to several metres wide.
It is a widespread species, found mainly in inland areas of NSW (tablelands to far western plains – mainly concentrated across most of the NSW western plains and western slopes except for the far north of the State) as well as Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and into Western Australia. It only occurs in Queensland in a few areas, around Inglewood and Chinchilla-Tara. It occurs in mainly north-western Victoria and all along the South Australian coast, continuing along the coast of WA to around Esperance.
Grows in open forest, woodland and mallee areas, in sandy soils and clay loams.
Australian Wattles at least, can be broadly placed into 1 of 3 recognisable groups:
Phyllodes and bipinnate leaves are always alternate to clustered, never opposite.
This species belongs to Group 1.
Phyllodes (modified leaves) are narrowly oblanceolate straight to slightly curved, to 12 cm long and about 1 cm wide.
Acacia spp. produce small 5-merous flowers, with 5 very small petals partly-fused into a short tube which sits above a fused calyx. The stamens are the main feature which are produced in high numbers per flower (staminate flowers), surrounding a single style. In this species, flowers are produced in globular heads with each head having up to 30 flowers, to 6 mm diameter. Heads are arranged in racemes with up to 12 heads per raceme, emerging from leaf axils; bright yellow, in winter and spring.
Pods are straight or twisted, to 12 cm long and 0.7 cm wide.
Very hardy, fast growing plant in most soils and is frost resistant. Can sucker if roots disturbed.
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.
Most wattles regenerate from seed after fire. This species is known to sucker from 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.
hakeoides – refers to the likeness of the phyllodes to the leaves of some Hakea species.
This species is not considered to be at risk of extinction in the wild.
Australian National Herbarium – Acacia hakeoides profile page http://www.anbg.gov.au/acacia/species/A-hakeoides.html
NSW Flora Online (PlantNET) – Acacia hakeoides profile page
http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Acacia~hakeoides
Wrigley, J.W. & Fagg, M.I. (2001). Australian Native Plants – Propagation, cultivation and use in landscaping. 4th edition. New Holland Publishers, Pty. Ltd. Australia.