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Acacia lanigera

species of plant

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ4670953
Source-derived summary

Acacia lanigera, commonly known as woolly wattle or hairy wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the south-east of continental Australia. It is a rigid shrub with hairy branchlets, leathery, narrowly elliptic, linear or lance-shaped phyllodes with the narrower end towards the base, spherical to oblong heads of golden yellow flowers, and linear, curved to coiled, leathery pods covered with shaggy or woolly hairs.

Description

Acacia lanigera is a rigid shrub that typically grows to a height of 1–2 m (3 ft 3 in – 6 ft 7 in) and has hairy branchlets. The phyllodes are narrowly elliptic, linear or lance-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, straight to slightly curved, usually 30–55 mm (1.2–2.2 in) long and 3–7 mm (0.12–0.28 in) wide, leathery and sometimes sharply pointed with three or four main veins and a gland up to 13 mm (0.51 in) above the pulvinus. The flowers are usually borne in a single spherical to oblong head in axils on a peduncle 2–9 mm (0.079–0.354 in) long, the heads 5–7 mm (0.20–0.28 in) long and 4.5–6.5 mm (0.18–0.26 in) in diameter with 20 to 30 golden yellow flowers. Flowering occurs from May to October, and the pods are linear, curved to openly coiled, up to 100 mm (3.9 in) long and 4–6 mm (0.16–0.24 in) wide, leathery and covered with shaggy or woolly hairs. The seeds are oblong to broadly elliptic, 4.5–5.0 mm (0.18–0.20 in) long, dull dark brown with an aril on the end.

Taxonomy

Acacia lanigera was first formally described in 1825 by Allan Cunningham in Barron Field's Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales. The specific epithet (lanigera) refers means 'wool-bearing' and refers to the hairs on the plant.

In 1864, George Bentham described two varieties of A. lanigera and in 1914, Edward Edgar Pescott described a third, and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:

Acacia lanigera var.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Acacia lanigera” is species of plant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Acacia, lanigera and species, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical orientation to terminology and classification, particularly when read beside dated observations, specimens or technical literature. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1825, 1864, 1914—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Acacia, lanigera and species is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “species of plant” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4670953. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1825, 1864 and 1914.

Critical limits

Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Check terminology, classification and the date of the cited evidence. Scientific names and technical consensus can change while older records retain historical value.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Acacia lanigera primary sources, Acacia lanigera archive and Acacia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Acacia lanigera” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.