Acacia melanoxylon blackwood
Acacia melanoxylon photographed in Liverpool, in the garden of Mr Norman Conway

Family: Leguminosae (Mimosoideae)

Origin: Tasmania and southern Australia

This is an evergreen tree which can reach up 20 m in cultivation, but nearer 30-35 m in the wild. Its juvenile leaves are minutely downy and pinnate; the mature phyllodes are laterally curved. The tree produces a very fine-grained, hard wood.

Acacia melanoxylon photographed in Liverpool, in the garden of Mr Norman Conway

Usually only seen as a specimen tree in plant collections. Introduced 1808.

Acacia melanoxylon photographed in Liverpool, in the garden of Mr Norman Conway

The word melanoxylon, from the Greek, means 'black wood'.

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