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, and the normal bipinnate leaves are progressively lost. Thus, among phyllodinous Acacia species, bi-pinnate foliage occurs only on very young plants.
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).
- Acacia pubifolia broad phyllodes.jpg
Broad phyllodes of Acacia pubifolia
- Acacia tetragonophylla spiny phyllodes.jpg
Spiny phyllodes of Acacia tetragonophylla
- Acacia clelandi fleshy phyllodes.jpg
Thick fleshy phyllodes of Acacia clelandi
- Acacia doratoxylon slender phyllodes.jpg
Slender leaf-like phyllodes of Acacia doratoxylon
