Acacia Study Group

Welcome to the Acacia Study Group.

The Acacia Study Group is one of a number of Study Groups within the Australian Native Plants Society (Australia). Our aim is to further knowledge about the cultivation, propagation and conservation of members of the genus Acacia. The Acacia Study Group has been in operation since 1961 and has been in continuous operation since 1971. Members of the Group are mainly keen amateurs with no formal horticultural or botanical knowledge, although a number of professionals in those fields also participate. As in all study groups, the members’ work is mainly carried out in their own homes and gardens and in their own spare time.

The group maintains an extensive seed bank and seed is available free to members.

Since the inception of the group well over 100 newsletters have been issued documenting the reports from members into cultivation issues in various climatic zones, propagation methods and natural occurrences of different species. Past issues of the newsletters can be downloaded from this site (see the link below).

If you are interested in the cultivation, propagation, conservation and appreciation of Australia’s native flora, especially acacias, why not consider joining and helping to promote these beautiful plants more widely.

Study group image

Membership is available to members of an ANPSA-affiliated Regional Society. If you are not a member of a Regional Society, please refer to the ANPSA Membership Page for further information on joining.

For more information or to join please send a request using the following form (please note that all fields are mandatory* – you may edit the ‘Message’ field if necessary).

Acacia Study Group Form

Signup form for the Acacia Study Group that sends a notification to the Study Group leader.

Newsletter, 1968 to present

Newsletter Archive

The Study Group produces four informative newsletters each year documenting reports from members into cultivation issues in various climatic zones, propagation methods, natural occurrences of different species and information on Group meetings and excursions. The following newsletters are available for download (Note: These are in pdf format and will require a PDF Reader to view them. Free readers include Foxit Reader and Adobe Acrobat Reader).

Almost all of the newsletters that have been published by the Group since its formation in 1961 are provided here as an archive, although the six missing issues in the First Series are believed to have been lost.

You can search the contents of the newsletters using the Search box above. Note that early issues have been scanned from paper copies before being processed via optical character recognition (OCR). As the success of OCR is highly dependent on the quality of the scans, searching may not be fully successful for those earlier issues.

Resources

These are a few internet and other resources on acacias that might prove useful:

Books:

  • Armitage, I (1977), Acacias of New South Wales, Society for Growing Australian Plants, NSW Region.
  • Elliot, W. R and Jones D (1982), The Encyclopaedia of Australian Plants, Vol.2, Lothian Publishing Company Pty Ltd, Melbourne.
  • Hitchcock, M (1991), Wattle, Australian Government Publishing Service.
  • Pedley, L (1987), Acacias in Queensland.
  • Rogers, F, Field Guide to the Wattles of Victoria.
  • Simmons, M (1981), Acacias of Australia, Vol.1, Thomas Nelson Australia.
  • Simmons, M (1987), Growing Acacias, Kangaroo Press.
  • Simmons, M (1988), Acacias of Australia, Vol.2, Penguin Books Australia.
  • Tame, T (1992), Acacias of South-east Australia, Kangaroo Press.
  • Wibley, D (1980), Acacias of South Australia, South Australian Government Printer.

Journals:

Several issues of the Society’s journal “Australian Plants” are particularly useful for those interested in Acacia.

  • Vol 10, No.82 March 1980; Microwave treatment of Acacia seed.
  • Vol 11, No.91 June 1982; Wattles of the Grampians.
  • Vol 14, No.114 March 1988; Outline of characteristics of Acacia.
  • Vol 17, No.134 March 1993; Top End wattles for gardens.
  • Vol 18, No.147 June 1986; Vegetative propagation of wattles.
  • Vol 21, No.169 December 2001; Acacia leprosa ‘Scarlet

Internet:

Newsletters 1961-1966