Acacia cowaniana
# Acacia cowaniana

Acacia cowaniana, commonly known as Cowan's wattle, is a shrub or tree of the genus Acacia and the subgenus Plurinerves that is endemic to an area of south west Australia.

## Description

The shrub or tree typically grows to a height of 1 to 5 metres (3 to 16 ft) and has glabrous or slightly hairy branchlets and obscure ribbing. Like most species of Acacia it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. The patent to inclined evergreen phyllodes have an incurved narrowly linear shape with a length of 2 to 5 cm (0.79 to 1.97 in) and a width of 1 to 2.5 mm (0.039 to 0.098 in) and have three to seven obscure nerves. It blooms from April to June and produces white-yellow flowers.

## Taxonomy

The species was first formally described by the botanist Bruce Maslin in 1990 as part of the work Acacia Miscellany. Three new Western Australian species with affinities to A. wilhelmiana (Leguminosae: Mimosoideae: Section Plurinerves) from Western Australia as published in the journal Nuytsia. It was reclassified as Racosperma cowanianum in 2003 by Leslie Pedley then transferred back to genus Acacia in 2006. The type specimen was collected from near Jilakin Rock in 1986 by Bruce Maslin.

## Distribution

It is native to an area in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia where it occurs among granite outcrops in pockets of soils. It is only found in a few populations located between Kellerberrin and Kulin.

