Senegalia hamulosa

Tilcayo Cats original · Plants · Sources and editorial assessment · Originals retention rule

Senegalia hamulosa is a thorny shrub or small tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. It grows in northeastern Africa, from Ethiopia towards northern Kenya, and in the Arabian Peninsula. Formerly known as Acacia hamulosa, it received its combination in Senegalia in 2015.

Appearance

The Flora of Somalia describes shrubs reaching about four metres, with grey, almost hairless branchlets. Prickles commonly occur in groups of three: the central one hooks downwards and the outer pair point upwards. Leaves are divided into several pairs of side branches bearing tiny paired leaflets.

Flowers grow in slender spikes up to about four centimetres long. The broad, flattened pods have thin, papery walls and a wrinkled surface; they become pale or yellowish brown and split open. The Somali treatment gives pod lengths of about 4–8.5 centimetres and also recognises much smaller-growing forms of the plant.

Range and habitat

Kew places the species mainly in desert and dry shrubland environments. The Somali flora records it at about 150–900 metres elevation.

A vegetation survey in Saudi Arabia identified a community dominated by S. hamulosa on loamy slopes and wadis in the Hijaz foothills between Jeddah and Medina, at approximately 600–1,000 metres. This community occupied six of the study's 110 sampled plots. Compared with the other communities sampled, its soils had the highest mean clay content and the lowest mean sand content.

The survey was carried out in spring 2015 and published in 2024. Its plot results describe a regional vegetation pattern; they do not show that the species requires the same soil everywhere or establish how common it is across its full range.