Golden Wattles – Acacia pycnantha, aka the golden wattle
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Eloise_Merryweather
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Quest:Wattle_You_Talkin%27_About
https://finalbastion.com/wizard101-worlds/wallaru/wallaru-eloise-quest-golden-wattle/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_pycnantha
How splendid it is to see Eloise while visiting a “normal” world. Eloise doesn’t seem to care for the lost collections of islands that are also people who are also nothing. So let’s discuss duck flowers, more accurately, the Golden Wattle. The Golden Wattle is a most beauteous bloom that resembles the webbed feet of a duck. Locals even say they walk around at night. The scent they give off is a wondrous bouquet that smells of sea air and feathers.
Acacia pycnantha, most commonly known as the golden wattle, is a tree of the family Fabaceae. It grows to a height of 8 meters (26 feet) and has phyllodes (flattened leaf stalks) instead of true leaves. The profuse fragrant, golden flowers appear in late winter and spring, followed by long seed pods. Explorer Thomas Mitchell collected the type specimen, from which George Bentham wrote the species description in 1842. The species is native to southeastern Australia as an understory plant in eucalyptus forest. Plants are cross-pollinated by several species of honeyeater and thornbill, which visit nectaries on the phyllodes and brush against flowers, transferring pollen between them.
A. pycnantha has become a weed in areas of Australia, as well as in Africa and Eurasia. Its bark produces more tannin than any other wattle species, resulting in its commercial cultivation for production of this compound. It has been widely grown as an ornamental garden plant and for cut flower production. A. pycnantha was made the official floral emblem of Australia in 1988, and has been featured on the country’s postal stamps.
Acacia pycnantha generally grows as a small tree to between 3 and 8 meters (10 and 30 feet) in height, though trees of up to 12 m (40 ft) high have been reported in Morocco. The bark is generally dark brown to grey—smooth in younger plants though it can be furrowed and rough in older plants. Branchlets may be bare and smooth or covered with a white bloom. The mature trees do not have true leaves but have phyllodes—flat and widened leaf stems—that hang down from the branches. Shiny and dark green, these are between 9 and 15 cm (3.5 and 5.9 in) long, 1–3.5 cm (0.4–1 in) wide and falcate (sickle-shaped) to oblanceolate in shape. New growth has a bronze coloration. Field observations at Hale Conservation Park show the bulk of new growth occurs over spring and summer from October to January.
Wattles, and in particular the golden wattle, have been an informal floral emblem of Australia for many years (for instance, it represented Australia on the Coronation gown of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953). The Australian Coat of Arms includes a wreath of wattle; this does not, however, accurately represent a golden wattle. Similarly, the green and gold colors used by Australian international sporting teams were inspired by the colors of wattles in general, rather than the golden wattle specifically.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Eloise Merryweather and Golden Wattle images are from Wizard101, and are copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment. The Golden Wattle Image is borrowed from Final Bastion.
Acacia pycnantha images are borrowed from Wikipedia. They are copyright Melburnian and is shared under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons License.
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
The other Eloise quest references can be found here.
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