Plant Profile
Acacia Cyclops
Common names: Rooikrans, red wreath, Coastal wattle
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Tree
Up to 8 m
Evergreen
Alien 2
Full Sun
Little water
Any Soil
Wind Resistant
Frost Resistant
A. cyclops is a dense, evergreen, bushy shrub, often multi-stemmed. It can also grow as a small tree to 3-8 m tall, with a trunk of 20 cm in diameter and a rounded crown, branching at or just above ground level often with foliage almost to the ground, obscuring the stems.
In windy coastal sites, it forms hedges less than 0.5 m high. Reproduction is only by seeds which have a bright red axil encircling the shiny black seed.
Foliage
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Acacia cyclops has light-green foliage. It has simple flattened phyllodes (modified leafstalks), narrowly oblong, varnished when young, and growing in a downward vertical position. Phyllodes are 4-9 cm long and 0.5-1.3 cm broad, nearly straight; blunt with a short, hard point curved to one side, tapering to a long-pointed base; stiff and leathery, glabrous, with 3-7 main veins arising from the base, and 1 small gland on the upper edge at the base.
Flower
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Inflorescence flowers are lemon yellow, in clusters of two to three heads on a short stout rachis, rarely solitary; flower-heads are globular, while the peduncles are slender, glabrous, 5-12 mm long
NOTES
Acacia cyclops is an extremely weedy species, although slow growing. Once established over large areas, it is difficult to remove or replace. It forms dense impenetrable stands that shade out native vegetation and that fire promotes spread into natural vegetation. It is invasive in South African forest gaps, dunes and along roadsides and watercourses.
It does produce useful firewood.
