Acacia pubescens

Acacia pubescens, the downy wattle, is an endangered shrub to small tree of the legume family (Fabaceae) endemic to the Sydney Basin of New South Wales, Australia. Plants grow from 1 to 5 meters tall with grey-brown bark and slender, slightly drooping branches that are densely covered in short soft hairs - the feature that gives the species its name. Like most wattles, the photosynthetic structures are bipinnate, with each leaf 1.5 to 6.5 centimeters long and divided into 3 to 12 pairs of pinnae, themselves further divided into 5 to 20 pairs of small narrow pinnules. From late winter into spring (August to October, peaking in September), the shrubs produce abundant bright yellow globular flower heads, each containing 12 to 20 individual flowers and arranged in axillary racemes. The legumes that follow ripen between October and December and are flattened pods 3 to 7 centimeters long containing several seeds. The species grows on clay soils in open sclerophyll forest dominated by eucalypts, in scattered populations around southwestern and northwestern Sydney.