Thrips and Australian Acacia species

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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. Thus, among phyllodinous Acacia species, bi-pinnate foliage occurs only on very young plants.

File:Acacia melanoxylon developing phyllodes.jpg
Acacia melanoxylon young plant with phyllodes replacing bipinnate leaves


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).