Vachellia stuhlmannii

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

Vachellia stuhlmannii, known as vlei thorn, is a thorny shrub or small tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. It occurs in eastern Africa and in a separate southern African population around the Shashe and Limpopo rivers. Kew's country records include Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Zimbabwe and northern South Africa.

Appearance

Young branches have a conspicuous coat of long golden hairs that become greyish with age. The paired spines are mostly straight. Leaves divide twice into paired branches and rows of small leaflets. In the southern regional account, the plant is generally a spreading shrub with several stems, about one to three metres tall.

White flowers form rounded heads, often appearing before the leaves. The short pods are tough and densely covered in yellowish hairs; they remain closed at maturity.

The East African flora records greater variation in size, from low shrubs to trees occasionally reaching seven and a half metres. Its tree form may have older bark that peels in thin papery layers. The Somali flora describes especially hairy pods, with local specimens generally having smaller fruits than the largest recorded for the species.

Habitat and flowering

The East African treatment places the species in wooded grassland and deciduous bushland, often on heavy soils deposited by rivers. It also records occurrences along coastal mangrove margins, over a regional elevation range from sea level to about 1,740 metres.

The Flora of Botswana account gives August to October as the flowering period in its region.

Botanical name

Acacia stuhlmannii was published in 1895; the current combination in Vachellia dates from 2013. The species name commemorates Franz Ludwig Stuhlmann, a collector of plants in eastern Africa.