Well defended

My tentative ID of this thorny plant is some kind of acacia. I saw it at the Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands, but if my ID is correct, it's not a plant that is native to the Galapagos.

The exotic location makes up for the unforgiving thorns......ouch! Very informative, and I believe a new one for the banner.

Ouch indeed! Some thorns! But a cheery Dr Seuss pompon of a flower and I like the ferry leaves.

Do you think it could be a Galapagos Acacia?
Galapagos Acacia (Vachellia rorudiana)

Beautiful, but not a plant I want to get close to...

Great banner Elizabeth!

Sorta reminds me of the Huisache tree we have in Texas. My photo doesn't show the thorns, but they are there somewhere!

scvirginia said:Do you think it could be a Galapagos Acacia?
Galapagos Acacia (Vachellia rorudiana)

Beautiful, but not a plant I want to get close to...

@scvirginia, there's a good chance you're correct. When I was trying to ID the plant in my photos, I don't remember this one turning up in my Google searches, which started with nothing more than a description of the blooms and thorns. I was happy enough to find near 'hits' among various other acacia species, that I didn't pursue the issue far enough. Thanks for weighing in.

Since the NGA database page for the plant doesn't have much info on it, I did a little more investigation. Here's a link if anyone wants to read more about its distribution, and other features.
https://www.anbg.gov.au/jmille...

I found a book on Galapagos plants at Wikimedia Commons. It is, oddly enough, called Galapagos Plants and the author is Klaus Schönitzer. I believe it was originally published by the Charles Darwin Foundation in 1975, so things have changed since then re botanical nomenclature & possibly with the distribution of the plants themselves?

Here is the page on acacias of the Galapago... apparently, there are four, none of which are endemic to the islands:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/...

Hope this is helpful, or at least interesting.

Cheers,
Virginia

Thanks for the link Virginia.
The description of the leaves of Acacia rorudiana (now Vachellia rorudiana) gave me pause. It said the leaflets are only about 1 mm long, which didn't seem right for the plant in my photograph. But when I took a closer look, I could see that what I took for leaflets were further subdivided, i.e. the leaves are doubly pinnate or compound pinnate, and the primary leaflets do indeed have their own secondary leaflets, which might, in fact, be as small as i mm. Who knew? Thanks for helping me (and others) learn more about this fascinating, if scary plant.

Had an acacia small tree similar to banner pic years ago with bright yellow wattle puffballs and the fragrance was outstanding.

It grew extremely fast. It was planted next to the mimosa tree with similar feathery pinnate leaves . Color of acacia leaves were blue green not a match to the green in banner.

Very intriguing plant exhibits lots of interest .

Nice pic….

I agree: Intriguing plant. I like the fuzzy yellow pompoms!