In the present state of our knowledge these characters va 
must be admitted as specific distinctions, but it is not at all “iy 
improbable that we shall hereafter be found to have very oe | 
unduly multiplied species in this Genus. In other Genera | 
forms far more unlike than many of these are to each other, 
are known, from their history and cultivation, to be hybrids 
or seedling varieties. The Acactas are seldom raised from 
the seeds of cultivated plants, and we have but an imper- 
fect assurance that in the wild state they have not that mu- 
tability of form which occurs in other Genera, and renders 
all specific distinctions uncertain. These observations are 
particularly forced upon me by the remarkable varieties of 
form which exist amoug the different specimens of Acacia 
decipiens, A. longifolia, A. stricta, and especially of A. ver- 
miciflua, at present in flower both in the greenhouse and 
in the open air at the Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. 
The specific name is descriptive of the drooping branches 
of our plant, and dull-green colour, compared with its 
nearest allies; but was first suggested by circumstances, 
entirely personal, under which I write the description. 
Descr. Shrub erect; branches drooping, puberulent, 
many-furrowed, when young green, afterwards brown. Sti- 
pules, like strong, rigid, straight, and spreading sete, which 
are at first green, and flattened on the sides which are to- 
wards the leaf, soon becoming brown, and at last falling, 
lateral, and free at the base. Leaves very shortly petioled, 
sub-erect, dark-green, slightly faleate, curving upwards, 
except at the mucronated tip, which is more or less bent 
down, slightly pubescent, especially when young, undulate, 
: : ° 
having a single sessile gland on the upper edge, near the 
base ; middle rib tolerably conspicuous, branching upon 
its lower side ; a fainter sub-simple rib occurs between this 
and the upper edge, and rather more than half way to this 
last. Heads solitary, or very rarely in pairs, on solitary 
pubescent peduncles, half the length of the leaf, and rising 
from the side of the bud in its axil, many-flowered, flowers 
yellow. Bractee greatly attenuated at the base, shorty 
so at the apex, marcescent, Calyx turbinate, five-toothed, 
teeth rounded and ciliated. Corolla twice as long as the 
calyx, five-cleft, segments narrow. Stamens very numerous, 
twice as long as the corolla. Style lateral, longer than the 
stamens. Germen oblong, slight sed. yellowish- 
green. Graham. §> Slightly compressed, y 
el 
Fig. 1. Leaf or Ph : Sig : : ee, 
melonited r Phyllodium with its Stipules, ' 2. Flower and Bractea 
