Senegalia mellifera (Vahl) Seigler & Ebinger
Mimosa mellifera Vahl, Acacia mellifera (M.Vahl) Benth.
Eng.: Acacia. Spa.: Acacia. Fre.: Acacia. Ara.: Samartabh, hashaab.
Tree up to 8(9) m in height, prickly, hermaphrodite, deciduous, usually with several trunks and a rounded crown, or an obconic shrub with extended, lax branches. Stems and main branches with smooth or slightly fissured bark, blackish, with white lenticels, which does not peel. Young branches glabrous, greyish or bright brown, also with lenticels, hairy. Prickles 2-6 mm, in groups of 2 at the nodes, hooked, blackish. Leaves 2-6 cm, alternate or in fascicles of 1-4 per node, bipinnate, glaucous at maturity, with filiform stipules promptly caducous, petiole 6-13 mm with a gland, pubescent, and with 1-3(4) pairs of pinnae, each with 1-2(3) pairs of leaflets (3)6-20(23) × (2)6-12(14) mm, ovate or obovate, rounded at the tip and the base, subsessile, asymmetric, green both sides, glabrous or hairy, usually slightly hairier on the underside. Inflorescences spiciform, up to 3.5 cm long, shortly pedunculate —peduncle 0.5-1.5 mm—, white or creamy white, solitary, often ± pendulous, with a glabrous rachis, and numerous minute flowers. Calyx c. 1 mm, campanulate, greenish-reddish, reddish when in bud, with 5 teeth triangular, subacute and glabrous. Corolla 2.5-3.5 mm, with 5 petals fused on their lower third, oblong, acute, white or creamy white, glabrous. Stamens numerous, free, with a white filament. Pod 2.5-6(8) cm × (12)15-25 mm, linear-oblong, pendulous, sometimes slightly constricted between the seeds, highly compressed, obtuse at both ends, a pale brown, glabrous, dehiscent, with (1)2-3(4) seeds. Seeds 7-10 × 6-8 mm in diameter, suborbicular or lenticular, highly compressed, an olive brown, with a dark pleurogram in horseshoe, smooth.
Flowering:
August to September, and in March.
Fruiting:
January to April.
Habitat:
In arid and semiarid regions, in dry soil, sandy, clayey or rocky, and in savannahs forming pure forests, sometimes impenetrable, or associated with other acacias (e.g. S. laeta, S. senegal); from sea level to 1,500 m (in Kenya).
Distribution:
Eastern half of Africa (including Angola and Namibia but excluding Libya) and the Arabian Peninsula (SW of Arabia, Yemen and Oman). In North Africa, in the Ennedi Massif (Chad), central and eastern Sudan and SE of Egypt.
Observations:
A plant with very fragrant and nectar producing flowers (hence the specific epithet). It has an extensive root system that allows it to survive in dry environments (up to 100 mm/year), although it usually grows in areas with 400-800 mm of annual precipitation.
Conservation status:
A relatively common and widely distributed species, not considered threatened. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, it is listed as Least Concern (LC) at global level. In the Red List of vascular plants of Egypt (Flora Aegyptiaca Vol 1, 2000) it is listed as “Endangered”.