3917

5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers

Acacia leptocarpa A. Cunn. ex Benth.

This article should be read together with the article on the genus: Acacia in the Handbook volume indicated above in this database.

Lond. Journ. Bot. 1: 376 (1842).

Racosperma leptocarpum (A. Cunn. ex Benth.) Pedley (1987).

Lesser Sunda Islands (Wetar), southern New Guinea and Australia (coastal Queensland and Northern Territory); also planted in trials in Thailand, Papua New Guinea and East Africa, as well as in industrial plantations in Kalimantan and Sumatra.

The wood is used as wattle. Because of its decorative figure it is often used for turnery and cabinet work; it is also used for firewood and is suitable for pulp production.

A small tree up to 12 m tall, bole branchless for up to 4 m, up to 25 cm in diameter, bark surface deeply longitudinally fissured, grey-black, inner bark dark red, branchlets only distally angular; phyllodes falcate, (10—)12—21(—26) cm 1—2.6 cm, 6—15(—17) times as long as wide, with 3 major yellowish longitudinal veins, secondary veins anastomosing; flowers in spikes, 5-merous, corolla 1.6—2.4 mm long; pod somewhat coiled, 4—12 cm 0.3 cm, subwoody, inconspicuously veined. Acacia leptocarpa occurs usually clustered in grassland and savanna woodland, and in monsoon scrub vegetation, often associated with Banksia, Melaleuca and Tristania spp., at 10—30 m altitude in Malesia, but up to 550 m in Australia.

[162]Flora Malesiana (various editors), 1950–. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Boston, London.
[649]Turnbull, J.W., 1986. Multipurpose Australian trees and shrubs. Lesser known species for fuelwood and agroforestry. Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, Canberra. 316 pp.
[350]Lanting, M.V., 1982. Germination of talisai (Terminalia catappa Linn.) seeds. Sylvatrop 7(1): 27–34.
[672]Verdcourt, B., 1979. A manual of New Guinea legumes. Botany Bulletin No 11. Office of Forests, Division of Botany, Lae. 645 pp.

F. Arentz

Arentz, F., 1995. Acacia leptocarpa A. Cunn. ex Benth.. In: Lemmens, R.H.M.J., Soerianegara, I. and Wong, W.C. (Editors): Plant Resources of South-East Asia No 5(2): Timber trees; Minor commercial timbers. PROSEA Foundation, Bogor, Indonesia. Database record: prota4u.org/prosea