Acacia melanoxylon or Blackwood is a long lived and frost tolerant wattle from the highlands of Southern Australia and Tasmania.
It is a very tall wattle with bushy crown and tall trunk.
It has dull olive grey scimitar shaped foliage and golden balls of fluffy flowers in springtime.
Its timber is highly prized due to its distinctive grain and is mainly used for furniture making and especially good for guitar making.
As it is fast growing is is often used as a wind break on farms, but is also quite good as a screen in gardens, providing that you keep it topped, otherwise it just gets too tall for most metropolitan gardens.
This is one of the longest living wattles - most have fairly short lives, like the Cootamundra Wattle which only lives for ten years.