Acacia gracilenta is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to the Northern Territory, Australia. It is a sticky shrub with greyish or light brown bark and branchlets, more or less linear to very narrowly elliptic, papery phyllodes, spikes of golden yellow flowers and linear, curved pods, raised over and constricted between the seeds.
Acacia gracilenta is a resinous, sticky and often spindly shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has greyish or light brown bark. Its branchlets are terete, pale to light green and sometimes covered with soft hairs. The phyllodes are more or less linear to very narrowly elliptic, straight or slightly curved, long, wide, papery and bright green. There is a prominent midvein and usually two less prominent veins on the phyllodes. The flowers are golden yellow and borne in a single spike long and wide in axils, on a peduncle long. Flowering has been recorded in April, May and August, and the pods are linear, curved, long, wide and glabrous, raised over and constricted between the seeds. The seeds have a cap-like aril folded about five times.
Acacia gracilenta was first formally described in 1992 by the botanists Mary Tindale and Phillip Kodela in the journal Telopea from specimens collected near the Upper East Alligator River in Arnhem Land in 1988. The specific epithet (gracilenta) refers to the rather graceful canopy of this species.
This species of wattle is endemic to the top end of the Northern Territory where it is found in Kakadu National Park and Nitmiluk National Park, often on plateaux, in gorges and on slopes in sandy soils usually near creeks or streams.
Acacia gracilenta is listed as of "least concern" under the Northern Territory Government Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act.