Thrips and Australian Acacia species
Revision as of 22:30, 30 January 2014 by Laurence Mound (talk | contribs)
Laurence Mound, CSIRO Ecosystems Sciences, Canberra
Introduction
In Australia, the plant genus Acacia includes about 1000 species of shrubs and trees <http://www.worldwidewattle.com/>.
In most of these, the leaf-like foliage of mature plants is actually modified leaf petioles, termed phyllodes, and the normal bipinnate leaves are progressively lost.
File:Acacia melanoxylon developing phyllodes.jpg
Acacia melanoxylon young plant with phyllodes replacing bipinnate leaves
Among phyllodinous Acacia species, bi-pinnate foliage occurs only on very young plants. These phyllode-bearing species are classified into three major Sections of the genus Acacia: Phyllodineae with almost 400 species, Juliflorae with about 255 species, and Plurinerves with about 215 species (Maslin, 2001).
