Myrtle wattle

Appearance

It is a small, bushy and glabrous shrub that typically grows to 0.3–3 m in height and 2–3 m across.

It has smooth grey coloured bark. The distinctive red branches are angled upward and have prominent ridges. The green slightly curved phyllodes have an elliptic to narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate shape. Each phyllode is 2–9 cm in length and 0.5–3 cm wide.

Its flowers are creamy white or pale yellow and appear in winter and spring. The inflorescence is glabrous with globose heads with a diameter of 6 to 13 mm . These are followed by 4–7 cm long curved seed pods.
The pale pods have prominent margins and are thinly woody to firm and brittle when dry. Shiny brown seeds are arranged longitudinally in the pod. Each seed is narrowly oblong with a length of 3.5 to 4.5 mm.

Distribution

The shrub is found across the south coast of Western Australia and extends inland. It is found in the South West, Wheatbelt, Great Southern and Goldfields-Esperance regions. Form Albany in the south to Kondinin in the north and from Augusta in the west to Cape Arid in the east. It grows well in a range of habitats in gravelly or sandy soils.

It is also found in coastal areas of South Australia east of the Eyre Peninsula extending coastal areas of Victoria and New South Wales and north into Queensland as far as Gladstone. It is also found in coastal areas of Tasmania.

Habitats where ''A. myrtifolia'' is found is mostly open forest, mixed woodlands, scrub or heath, usually in coastal or near-coastal locations. The distribution pattern of the shrub closely follows the combined distributions of ''Acacia subcaerulea'' and ''Acacia suaveolens''.