List Of Acacia Species
Several cladistic analyses have shown that the genus Acacia is not monophyletic. While the subg. Acacia and subg. Phyllodinae are monophyletic, subg. Aculeiferum is not. This subgenus consists of three clades. Therefore, the following list of Acacia species cannot be maintained as a single entity, and must either be split up, or broadened to include species previously not in the genus. This genus has been provisionally divided into 5 genera, Acacia, Vachellia, Senegalia, Acaciella and Mariosousa. The new type species of Acacia has become Acacia penninervis.
Which of these segregate genera is to retain the name Acacia has been controversial. The genus was previously typified with the African species Acacia scorpioides (L.) W.F.Wright, a synonym of Acacia nilotica (L.) Delile. Under the original typification, the name Acacia would stay with the group of species currently recognized as the genus Vachellia. Orchard and Maslin proposed a retypification of the genus Acacia with the species Acacia penninervis Sieber ex DC., an Australian species that is a member of the largest clade within Acacia, a primarily Australian group formerly recognized as Acacia subgenus Phyllodinae, on the basis that this results in the fewest nomenclatural changes. Although this proposal met with strong disagreement by some authors, it was accepted on 16 July 2005 by the XVII International Botanical Congress in Vienna, Austria. Consequently, the name Acacia is conserved for 948 Australian species, 7 in the Pacific Islands, 1 or 2 in Madagascar and 10 in tropical Asia. Those outside Australia are split between the genera Acaciella, Mariosousa, Senegalia, and Vachellia. This decision was upheld at the 2011 Congress.
In its new circumscription, the genus Acacia (now limited to the Australian species) has six subgenera : Botrycephalae, Pulchellae, Plurinerves, Phyllodinae, Juliflorae, Lycopodiifoliae and Alatae (an artificial section)
The other species, distributed in the Indian Ocean, tropical Asia and tropical America will be classified under
- Vachellia (former subgenus Acacia) : 163 species (pantropical)
- Senegalia (former subgenus Aculeiferum) : 203 species (pantropical)
- Acaciella (former subgenus Aculeiferum section Filicinae): 15 species (Americas)
- Mariosousa 13 species, related to Acacia coulteri (A. acatlensis, A. centralis, A. compacta, A. dolichostachya, A. durangensis, A. mammifera, A. millefolia, A. russelliana, A. salazar, A. sericea, A. usumacintensis, and A. willardiana) (Americas)
Two former Australian acacias are re-classified under Vachellia, and another two under Senegalia.
Read more about List Of Acacia Species: Common Species, Other Species
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