Mimosa

Acacia dealbata, the silver wattle or mimosa, is a fast-growing evergreen tree in the legume family Fabaceae reaching up to about 30 m tall, occasionally remaining a bushy spreading shrub on poorer sites. The smooth grey, brown or dark-brown bark becomes deeply furrowed with age, while young branchlets and the new foliage are softly hoary, giving the canopy its silvery cast. The leaves are bipinnate and feathery, bluish-grey to silvery and conspicuously glaucous, composed of many tiny linear leaflets. From July to November (winter and early spring in its native range) the tree produces enormous masses of small, fragrant, bright yellow globular flower heads in large terminal panicles, followed by straight to slightly curved, flattened blue-purplish pods. It is native to southeastern mainland Australia, including New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, growing in forests and woodlands on a range of soils, often on slopes and creek banks, and is widely cultivated and naturalised elsewhere.