Thrips and Australian Acacia species

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. Among phyllodinous Acacia species, bi-pinnate foliage occurs only on very young plants [FIG]. 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).