Vachellia robusta(Burch.) Kyal. & Boatwr.

WFO wfo-0001336881 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Vachellia robusta, photographed by Rosemary Harrison
fig. a Rosemary Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-07-19 / obs. 144698877
Vachellia robusta, photographed by Rosemary Harrison
fig. b Rosemary Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 132395522
Vachellia robusta, photographed by Rosemary Harrison
fig. c Rosemary Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 132396601
Vachellia robusta, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. d Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119979746
Vachellia robusta, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. e Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 95045741
Vachellia robusta, photographed by Hildegard Klein
fig. f Hildegard Klein, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 93396917
Vachellia robusta, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. g Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77801600
Vachellia robusta, photographed by Henry de Lange
fig. h Henry de Lange, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 88844609

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 16 botanical countries

Regions where Vachellia robusta is native: Botswana, Cape Provinces, Caprivi Strip, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Somalia, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe BotswanaCape ProvincesCaprivi StripEswatiniEthiopiaFree StateKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMalawiMozambiqueNamibiaNorthern ProvincesSomaliaTanzaniaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Vachellia robusta, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Botswana BOT AFRICA
Cape Provinces CPP
Caprivi Strip CPV
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Free State OFS
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Northern Provinces TVL
Somalia SOM
Tanzania TAN
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 291 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 2.6 °C 5.5 °C 15.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.2 °C 27.4 °C 30.7 °C
Annual rainfall 518 mm 682 mm 1,053 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 12 mm 19 mm 111 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 291 research-grade observations of Vachellia robusta that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 9 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Acacia clavigera E.Mey.
  • Acacia clavigera subsp. usambarensis (Taub.) Brenan
  • Acacia robusta Burch.
  • Acacia robusta subsp. clavigera (E.Mey.) Brenan
  • Acacia robusta subsp. robusta
  • Acacia robusta subsp. usambarensis (Taub.) Brenan
  • Acacia sacleuxii A.Chev.
  • Acacia sambesiaca Schinz
  • Acacia usambarensis Taub.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.