Myrtle wattle

Acacia myrtifolia, commonly called myrtle wattle, is a small bushy glabrous shrub of the Fabaceae family typically reaching 0.3 to 3 metres tall and 2 to 3 metres across. The smooth grey-barked branchlets are angled and red-tinged, with prominent ridges descending from the phyllode bases. Like most Australian acacias, mature plants bear flattened leaf-like phyllodes rather than true compound leaves; these are bright green, slightly curved, elliptic to narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate, 2 to 9 centimetres long and 5 to 30 millimetres wide, with a thickened yellow margin and a single longitudinal vein. Flowers are produced in winter and spring in small axillary racemes of two to eight globose heads, each head 6 to 13 millimetres in diameter and composed of creamy white to pale yellow fragrant flowers. The fruit is a curved, thinly woody to firm-brittle pod 4 to 7 centimetres long with prominent thickened margins, containing dark seeds with a thickened aril. It is widespread on sandy and gravelly soils in heath, dry sclerophyll forest and mallee across southern Australia.