Acacia leprosa Scientific name: Acacia leprosa ‘Scarlet Blaze’ Family: Faboideae – Mimosoideae

Location You’ll find this plant in the Wattle Garden in Bed 128 overlooking Lake Howe.

Flowering in later winter/early spring at Mount Annan Botanic Garden is an oddity which you probably won’t easily find anywhere else. It’s the world’s only red-flowering wattle. As you probably know, wattles usually range in colour from white through cream to light and then bright yellow (with one mauve species from northern Australia).  But ‘Scarlet Blaze’ is a colour mutant of the normally yellow-flowering Acacia leprosa, the Cinnamon Wattle.  Victoria selected this mutation as its State flower in celebration of the Bicentenary of Federation in 2001 and the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne has released it commercially.