# Acacia

**Family:** Fabaceae

_**Acacia**_, commonly known as the **wattles** or **acacias**, is a large [genus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genus "Genus") of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family [Fabaceae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabaceae "Fabaceae"). Initially it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australia, with the first species _[A. nilotica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vachellia_nilotica "Vachellia nilotica")_ described by Linnaeus. Controversy erupted in the early 2000s when it became evident that the genus as it stood was not [monophyletic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monophyly "Monophyly"), and that several divergent lineages needed to be placed in separate genera. It turned out that one lineage comprising over 900 species mainly native to Australia was not closely related to the mainly African lineage that contained _A. nilotica_ —the first and [type species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_species "Type species"). This meant that the Australian lineage (by far the most prolific in number of species) would need to be renamed. Botanist Les Pedley named this group _**Racosperma**_, which was inconsistently adopted. Australian botanists proposed that this would be more disruptive than setting a different type species ( [_A. penninervis_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_penninervis "Acacia penninervis")) and allowing this large number of species to remain _Acacia_, resulting in the two African lineages being renamed _[Vachellia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vachellia "Vachellia")_ and _[Senegalia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegalia "Senegalia")_, and the two New World lineages renamed _[Acaciella](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acaciella "Acaciella")_ and _[Mariosousa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariosousa "Mariosousa")_. This was officially adopted, but many botanists from Africa and elsewhere disagreed that this was necessary.

[**Source:** Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia)