Acacia cognata river wattle

A small, fast-growing tree with delicate, lance-shaped, drooping phyllodes up to 4 inches long. The graceful, weeping crown remains a neat, glossy green all year. In spring, tiny pompoms of pale lemon-yellow flowers poke out of the leaf axils on little stalks all along the branches. Two specimens with substantial trunks are at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, in the north courtyard of the main, cross-shaped building.

The dwarf cultivar with trade name Cousin Itt is popular, forming a cushion-like mound that can easily be kept to 3 feet high and 4 feet wide with occasional snips of your pruning shears. Several are in the enclosed west courtyard of McDonald Hall near the tree ferns. Others are on the left at 1082 Cathcart Way. At 400 Stanford Shopping Center, groups of Cousin Itt drape over the edges of the raised planting beds near the entrances.