1317 



1 



ACACIA'' albida. 



Whitish-leaved Acacia 



POLYGAMIA MONCECJA. 



Nat. ord. Leguminos;e. § Mimosea 

 A CACIA.—Suprd, vol. 2. fol. 98. 



Sect. IV. Foliis bipinnatis, Jloribus in capitula glohosa collectis. 



§ 1. Aculeatee. 



* Aculeis omnibus stipularibus rectis, leguminibus inermihus, staminihus 

 20 et ultrct. Dec. prodr. 2. 460. 

 A. albida ; spinis geminis abbreviatis, ramis petlolis pedunculisque pubes- 



centibus, pinnis 6-7-jiigis, foliolis 8-10-jugis linearibus acutis, capitulis 



pedunculatis gerainis axillaribus. 



Our drawing of this plant was made some years since 

 in the Garden of the Horticultural Society, where it had 

 been raised from Peruvian seeds. The specimen from 

 which it was taken having been lost, we can give no 

 description of it, except such as might be drawn up from 

 the figure itself. Of this practice, which sometimes occurs, 

 we so entirely disapprove, that we prefer to leave the 

 history of the species openly incomplete. 



It is a hardy greenhouse plant, very pretty when in 



blossom ; it bears its heads of bright yellow flowers 

 abundantly in October. 



* The akakU of Dioscorides (1. 133) appears to have been our Acacia 

 vera ; but he had another plant which he called by the same name, a native 

 of Cappadocia and Pontus, which is believed to have been Spartium spi- 

 Tiosum. Some of the writers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries fancied 

 the sloe, Prunus spinosa, to have been the Acacia of the ancients. The 

 derivation of the name is not well made out: if we are to credit De Theis, 

 its root is to be traced in the Cejtic ac, which signifies a point ; and in tliat 

 case the name has been invented in allusion to the spines of the plant. 



