67 
ACACIA moesta. 
The Mourning Wattle. 
POLYGAMIA MONCECIA. 
a ord. FABACEX. (LEGUMINOUS PLANTS, Vegetable Kingdom, 
p. 544. 
ACACIA. — Bot. Reg. fol. 98. 
A. mesta ; pubescens, nigroviridis, ramulis angulato-striatis, phyllodiis ad- 
pressis sparsis binerviis oblongis cum mucrone, spicis cylindricis densis 
phyllodia superantibus. 
For a specimen of this plant we are indebted to an anony- 
mous correspondent of the Gardener's Chronicle, from whom 
it was received in April last. Upon submitting it to Mr. 
Bentham, for his opinion, we were favoured with the fol- 
lowing memorandum :— 
“The Acacia is so very close upon some of the broad short- 
leaved forms of A. verticillata, that although it is very different 
from the common forms, I know not how to characterise it 
as distinct. Itis an extreme of my var. latifolia, such as I 
have seen before, and intended to make a species once, till I 
got hold of a set of intermediates from that to A. ruscifolia 
of Botanical Magazine ; and from this, to the common form, 
intermediates are frequent enough. We get so many of these 
Acacias by bits and scraps, without fruit, that we are obliged 
to take the chief character from the phyllodia, which in some 
species vary even with the age of the plant. At the same 
time, I do not affirm that some of these broad-leaved forms 
may not be distinct, only that I have as yet found no character 
that will hold good when you get a number of specimens from 
different sources.” 
Notwithstanding this high opinion as to the plant being 
a mere variety of A. verticillata we are induced to separate 
it because its leaves are not verticillate, nor narrow, nor 
spreading, and because of its singular dull or even black 
