Weeping Myall

Appearance

The tree typically grows to a height of 5 to 13 m and a width of 4 to 6 m and has an erect, pendulous to spreading habit. It has hard fissured grey bark on the trunk and limbs. It has pendulous branches with angled or flattened branchlets that are covered in short fine hairs but becomes glabrous as it matures. The grey-green narrow phyllodes are about 4 to 14 cm in length and 3 to 10 mm wide and have a narrowly elliptic to very narrowly elliptic or sometimes narrowly oblong-elliptic shape and can be straight or curved The phyllodes have many longitudinal indistinct veins, a subacute apex with mucro and one gland near base. It flowers in the summer and autumn from around November to May and produces yellow flowers. The inflorescences mostly occur in groups of two to five on2–5 on an axillary axis. The spherical flower-heads have a diameter of 3 to 7 mm and contain 10 to 20 bright yellow flowers. The papery to leathery green seed pods that form after flowering are flat and straight to strongly curved and age to a brown colour. The pods are irregularly constricted between each of the seeds and are 3 to 9 cm in length and 10 to 20 mm. Seeds are often collected between October and January.

Distribution

It occurs naturally in dry outback areas in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. In New South Wales the tree has a disjunct but widespread throughout inland areas usually to the east of the upper Hunter Valley. It is often situated on major river floodplains growing as part of woodlands, sometimes as the dominant species, where it grows well in heavy clay soils. In all states it is found to the west of the Great Dividing Range growing in alluvial soils consisting of sand, gravel, silt and clay in areas that receive 400 to 600 mm of annual rainfall.