Acacia neriifolia
FAMILY: MIMOSACEAE
This wattle is the glory of our redsoil roadsides every August, yet it is a wattle that very few people choose to plant. When not flowering it’s a mildly attractive tree, but the only planted examples I have ever seen are a few scattered street in town. It’s a small tree (to about 8 metres), and is very suitable for the purpose. It would also suit a moderate-sized suburban block. It tolerates our worst droughts and frosts.
Here it is, growing wild in the Charles and Motee Rogers Park in Highfields. While I’m glad the park exists, I find it sad to think that glorious displays like this which are part of the annual cycle of the seasons in the Toowoomba district, may eventually only exist in parks and reserves. I’d like to think they would never disappear from our roadsides, but as a community we need to develop a higher regard for our dwindling patches of natural environment, if our great-grandchildren are ever to see a sight like the one we now take for granted each August, on the drive between Toowoomba and Crows Nest.
This tree is also a butterfly host plant.
For about it see August 2009
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