Vachellia grandicornuta

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

Vachellia grandicornuta is a thorny shrub or tree of southern Africa in the pea family, Fabaceae. Older botanical works call it Acacia grandicornuta. Its combination in Vachellia was published in 2010.

Appearance

The Flora Zambesiaca treatment describes trees about 3–10 metres tall, with smaller shrubby plants also occurring. The bark is grey to almost black. Young twigs lack hairs, and older branches have smooth grey or purplish bark. Straight or nearly straight thorns can reach about nine centimetres.

The leaves divide into one to four pairs of side branches, each bearing several pairs of small leaflets. Strongly scented white flowers form rounded heads. The narrow pods curve into a sickle shape and split open when mature; they are about 6–11.5 centimetres long. Their smooth walls turn purplish or brown and enclose flattened seeds.

The South African flora distinguishes this species from the related Acacia robusta group by a combination of slender branches, narrow curved pods and leaf characters. It retains A. grandicornuta as a distinct species rather than treating superficial resemblance as evidence that the plants are identical.

Range and habitat

The South African flora records the plant from southeastern Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Eswatini and parts of South Africa. It inhabits dry woodland and thornveld, often on deep soils. It can form thickets and become locally dominant over fairly extensive areas.

Kew places the species in the seasonally dry tropical biome. Its woodland occurrence includes the transition between the Kalahari and Highveld regions as well as Zambezian woodland.