Trying to improve Acacia information

[nen888]

hi aussietripper..there is an Acacia Identification Thread for this purpose (which a mod will probably move your post to)
..it has a lot of IDs and photos..i suggest studying it a bit..a few nexians have honed their ID skills ..very quickly, you may have Acacia maidenii then something in the A. concurrens group first, second is A. complanata then A. falcata..

so, unless there's an extraction result,. please no ID requests in this thread...there's enough going on in here already!

 

[acacian]

^..i'd say it's longifolia (a variety of) ...it's not obtusifolia (the phyllodes are not leathery or blunt) and it's not mucronata (the phyllodes are too large and not mucronate enough [see botanical terms, index]) ..
when did it flower?

flowered around september... as opposed to most longifolia down here flowering in june, and had pale almost white flowers 4.5cm long occurrng only in bursts at the end of branches. the top photos however were of a tree a bit further down which I did not see at the time of flowering. near identical species though apart from the more consistently large phyllodes (the specimen in the bottom had smaller phyllodes in some areas of the tree

 

[DreaMTripper]

Thanks as ever for the info nen.

It was interesting to notice today that an a.pycnantha had full grown phyllodes and looked 2 months old at the most, only 3 or 4 phyllodes. Cute little plant.

 

[aussietripper]

does anyone know if the A. obtusifolia is active with dmt at any stage in bark twigs and phyllodes or does it produce Alkaloids at a certain stage in its life or growth cycle

 

[nen888]

^..it is seasonally variable..like A. longifolia..there is a discussion of variation on p43..there are times it has not much of anything..

acacian..regarding your tree it may well be mucronata x longifolia or ob x long (oblong) ..the length of the flowers and shape of pod, as well as aril, would shed more light on this..

lastly, big thank you to those who have inputted info on their experiments in the last few months..
i wonder what the other several thousand readers of the thread have been doing..?

 

[nen888]

..now here's an interesting Masonic offshoot society
The Acacia Fraternity....
their motto (as seen in greek on their coat of arms, pictured below) 'Human service'
..they were founded in 1903 in Michigan...you had to already be a Mason to join.. see http://acacia.org/pythagoras/the-fraternity/insignia-and-heraldry/
.

 

[acacian]

^..it is seasonally variable..like A. longifolia..there is a discussion of variation on p43..there are times it has not much of anything..

acacian..regarding your tree it may well be mucronata x longifolia or ob x long (oblong) ..the length of the flowers and shape of pod, as well as aril, would shed more light on this..

lastly, big thank you to those who have inputted info on their experiments in the last few months..
i wonder what the other several thousand followers of the thread have been doing..?

flowers 4.5cm length, pale yellow/white, pods almost straight slightly curved (slightly more straight than the mucronata subs. mucronata pods but were still growing).. pic no.6 in my post on the previous post you can see the pods

 

[nen888]

^..it's interesting..were there more trees the same or similar? it could be a one-off, or some expression of polyploidness..
i suspect hybridisation, probably A. longifolia with mucronata..

there have now been at least half a dozen successful A. longifolia reports, with good results..

.

ok, stand by for more acacia-esoterica, when i return..
.

 

[nen888]

oh, one more thing..

^ not to mention it destroys their sole defence against bacteriological infection. Please keep in mind, whoever reads this thread, that a number of fairly well known stands are watched over by people more than willing to cause harm to people they catch doing this type of damage.

it's a shame not all who engage with the trees have the right eyes to see their teaching. Many are called but few are chosen.


in relation to bitterness it's my experience that a better description of the taste which may indicate presence of alkaloids is astringency, 'sharpness', caustic-ness even, a 'wish i hadn't done that-edness'. I'm pretty sure most if not all phyllodes are bitter. a few of the bi-pinnate species are recorded to be utilised as a food source, and may not be so bitter, but i think technically they're called leaves anyway ..


good vibes to you guys, esp. acacian, you loveable rudderless hippy

..i absolutely agree people should give this species, and those spots a break..permanently..they need a chance to grow, repopulate..so i'm sympathetic to vigilante action in these cases of serious tree-abuse..

please grow plants!

and, yes 'astringent' is a better term, however many plants which are technically astringent don't contain alkaloids..
i guess it's a taste learned with experience..
thanks for your comments

 

[acacian]

^..it's interesting..were there more trees the same or similar? it could be a one-off, or some expression of polyploidness..
i suspect hybridisation, probably A. longifolia with mucronata..

there have now been at least half a dozen successful A. longifolia reports, with good results..

.

ok, stand by for more acacia-esoterica, when i return..
.

there were about 7 or 8 more trees of the same type if i remember correctly.. quite a few anyways. i think hybridisation is certainly the most probable possibility as it is certainly differen't from "normal" longifolia and vastly different from mucronata subs. mucronata (phyllodes much broader and leathery).

also, I think the general assumption of pale rod flower species with no basal gland being floribunda needs to be revised as many different specimens around the area don't have a basal gland present but are definitely not your typical floribunda (eq flowers not abundant at all phyllodes much more stiff and leathery).. i have a feeling there a probably quite a few more juliflorae with no basal gland

mucronata, longifolia and suburban grown floribunda (differing in taxanomic qualities though) are all common to the yarra ranges so I presume there's probably a lot of hybridisation between these three species. the flowers from what I remember smell a lot like longifolia flowers and very unlike floribunda

 

[nen888]

acacian wrote:

I think the general assumption of pale rod flower species with no basal gland being floribunda needs to be revised as many different specimens around the area don't have a basal gland present but are definitely not your typical floribunda (eq flowers not abundant at all phyllodes much more stiff and leathery).

..but this is one of the definitions of A. floribunda as a species...this would suggest that these other trees are not floribunda, and are longifolia or something else..
as i said a while back, until fairly recently i had not heard of a negative floribunda result..

the key features distinguishing A. floribunda (from similar species) are:
-phyllodes thin and pliable, gland absent
-flower spikes loosely packed, interrupted (not dense like longifolia) ..yellow or pale..

typical A. floribunda below:

 

[acacian]

could it no be possible that there are other species that don't have a basal gland present on phyllodes? and the floribunda specimens I've tested down here (as well as other people) display the same characteristics you mentioned and are identical to the photo you posted

i guess what I am saying though is that if a species has a gland absent on its phyllodes i'm not sure it should automatically be classed as floribunda, because a number of the longifolia-like trees as well as trees much closer to mucronata had no basal gland present.. i have a bag of phyllodes collected from what I'm sure is a strain of mucronata that has no basal gland on any of the phyllodes, but I am sure it is not floribunda as it does not have soft papery phyllodes, but instead quite sharp (or mucronate) and quite stiff/erect as mucronata is known for. also flowers only occur in short bursts at the end of branches and are by no means abundant like floribunda...

.. i have a feeling as wira stated a few pages back that floribunda is an extremely taxanomically variable species and that like longifolia, may have active "types", and also inactive types.. certainly most specimens tested by people that i've talked to down here are coming back negative..

below two photos of a negative alkaloid floribunda from around melbourne and below that an interesting tree that looks like it maybe shares mucro/flori genes.. no basal gland was present on any of these

 

[nen888]

..it's the combination of features described above which technically defines it..although as you and wira say it is variable..those few key features should remain constant, or it probably is something else..other species are variable in whether they have a gland or not..as for what else is found down there, i'll have a think..

 

[nen888]

..thanks for photos acacian..interesting..
hmmm

i think the top photos in last post look a bit longifolia-like, even though the flowers are not as dense as some..

 

[acacian]

I'll have a look around as well and see what other species ccur in the area.. as far as I know around melbourne, naturally occuring juliflorae are mainly longifolia, floribunda, sophorae and differen't forms of mucronata.. oxycedrus bit further out. I think msot of the floribunda in the area have become naturalised from being cultivated as they aren't seen in the wild all that often.. and those that do have a much more tryptamine vibe about them

.. interesting also, the longifolias I tested were variable in that some had basal glands present and others didn't ...but both undeniably of the same form

 

[nen888]

..typical defined floribunda the flower rods are more 'interrupted' than the top photos in last post..the phyllodes look like forms of longifolia..

 

[nen888]

difficult complexes and hybrids going on here

..i guess selecting 'desirable' sub-varieties of species was one of the goals encouraged in the thread earlier on..

keep up the good, and arduous, selection work acacian..!

 

[nen888]

moving back to acacia-esotericism (where i spend a lot of time these days)

there is an old connection between the Acacia, Taoism, India and old exorcism rites..

in 676 AD the Brahmin monk Buddhapala travelled from northern India to China, meeting an old man in the Siyang Mountain Range..
the old man told him that the sanskrit Usnisa Vijaya Dharani Sutra "can eliminate all the evil karma of sentient beings."
"If you could bring back this Sutra from India for circulation, that would be equivalent to paying homage to all sages universally, extensively benefiting all sentient beings, liberating the beings in the underworld and repaying the kindness of all Buddhas."
..Buddhapala returned a few years later with the sanskrit text, translated..

in exorcism, following the instruction of The Uṣṇīṣa Vijaya Dhāraṇī Sūtra ( ऊष्णीष विजय ढारणी सूत्र; 佛頂尊勝陀羅尼經),
the Master of incantations constructs a square altar (jiejie 市傑) "around which are planted four sprigs with eight branches of Acacia wood (皂莢, qutuoluo, khadira) which he consecrates with a mantra recited 108 times." [Christine Mollier, 2008]

below, the mantra, and khadira

 

[DreaMTripper]

Very interesting nen and that tree has an interesting bark structure, more more! :d

Found these upon reading today, more references to acacia, really is well entrenched in many cultures and civilizations..

Then the last one that sums up so well the 'nature' of nature and its peaceful existence.

 

[adam]

/me bows to nen888

You do amazing work. 8)