Senegalia laeta (R.Br. ex Benth.) Seigler & Ebinger
Acacia laeta R.Br. ex Benth.
Eng.: Acacia. Spa.: Acacia. Fre.: Acacia. Ara.: Hashaab. Tamahaq: Taezeyt, tazoet, haza, tazzeyt. Mali: Fula-pulaar, patuki.
Shrub or small tree up to 5 m in height, prickly, hermaphrodite, deciduous, with short trunk and extended lax branches. Stems and main branches with smooth bark, only slightly fissured, light grey, which does not peel. Young branches herbaceous, glabrous or hairy. Prickles 3-6 mm, in groups of 2 at the nodes —rarely 3—, hooked, reddish-brown to blackish, asymmetric, rarely reduced or missing. Leaves up to 8 cm, alternate, bipinnate, glaucous, with filiform stipules promptly caducous, petiole 8-12 mm, with a gland towards the middle, petiole and rachis glabrous or pubescent, and with 2-3 pairs of pinnae, each with 3-5(7) pairs of leaflets 6-12 × 3-6 mm, elliptical, oblong or oblong-obovate, rounded at the tip and the base, subsessile, green on the upper side and glaucous on the underside, glabrous or sometimes sparsely ciliate. Inflorescences spiciform, 3-8 cm long, white or whitish-yellow, solitary or in groups of 2-3, peduncle short, with glabrous or slightly hairy rachis, and numerous minute flowers. Calyx 1.5-2 mm, campanulate, greenish, with 5 teeth wider than long, rounded, scarious-whitish in the margin, glabrous or ciliolate at the apex. Corolla 3-3.5 mm, with 5 petals fused at much of their base, ovate-lanceolate, acute, white or whitish-yellow, ciliolate at the tip. Stamens numerous, slightly fused at the base, with white filament. Pod (4)5-8 cm × (15)20-25(28) mm, linear-oblong, pendulous, not constricted between the seeds except for being sometimes slightly constricted at the height of the aborted seeds, highly compressed, obtuse or apiculate at the tip and attenuated at the base, straw yellow in colour, slender and laxly pubescent —turning glabrous—, eventually dehiscent, with 2-3(5) seeds. Seeds 8-10 mm in diameter, suborbicular, highly compressed, an olive brown, with a dark horseshoe-shaped pleurogram, smooth, shiny.
Flowering:
July to October.
Fruiting:
Between 1-2 months later.
Habitat:
Desert and semi-desert areas. Dunes and depressions, wadis, up to 1,500 m in altitude.
Distribution:
Northern tropical Africa (from the Atlantic to the Red Sea), S of Arabia, Palestine and Israel (Dead Sea region). In North Africa, it grows in central and southern Mauritania, S of Algeria (Ahaggar), central and southern Mali, Niger (towards the N to the Air mountains), Chad (towards the N to Tibesti and Ennedi), central and northern Sudan, Eritrea and exteme SE of Egypt.
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 Algeria it is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012). In Mali it is included in its List of species that need authorization for commercial use (Decree 07-155/P-RM of 2007).