Acacia dealbata

If it is exercise you need after the festive fortnight then a walk around the Garden could be just the place to fulfil this desire.

Visit the cool temperate environment of the Temperate Lands House in the front range where Acacia dealbata is a mass of yellow globose flowers. This evergreen tree is native to Tasmania and south-east Australia where the genus is one that provides canopy cover reaching 30 metres in height.

The combination of finely cut glaucous blue foliage and flowers make this a stunning plant. The flowers are grouped in dense panicles and exude a gentle fragrance.

The mass of stamens are interspersed with protruding styles which under a hand lens are white in colour and twice the length of the stamens. The individual globules of yellow flowers are held on short stalks. The stems are covered in a white farina.

Acacia dealbata

Widely sold by florists as “Mimosa” and used as backing to flower arrangements.

This plant was grown on from seed collected from a tree growing on sandy alluvium over sandstone on a valley floor at 980m in New South Wales within a forest of companion Eucalyptus species.