LEGUMINOS^ 



543 



A tree, occasionally 15-20 high, with a straight trunk 5'-6' in diameter, stout 

 wide-spreading branches forming an open irregular head, and slender somewhat zig- 

 zag slightly angled reddish brown branchlets roughened by numerous minute round 

 lenticels, villose, with short pale hairs, and armed with thin terete puberulous spines 

 occasionally f long; in Texas usually shrubby, with numerous stems forming a sym- 

 metrical round-topped bush only a few feet high. Bark dark brown or nearly black, 

 and deeply furrowed. 



Distribution. Valley of the Rio Cibolo to Eagle Pass on the Rio Grande, Texas; 

 and in northern and southern Mexico, the West Indies, Venezuela, and on the Gala- 

 pagos Islands; in Texas probably arborescent only on the plains of the Rio Grande 

 near Spofford. 



3. Acacia Wrightii, Benth. Cat's Claw. 



Leaves l'-2' long, slightly pubescent, especially on the petioles and rachises, with 

 1-3 pairs of pinnse, slender petioles 1^' long, and eglandular or glandular, with small 

 convex glands, and linear acute caducous stipules ^^g' long; pinnae short-stalked, 



with 2-5 pairs of obliquely obovate-oblong leaflets, obtuse, rounded, and often apic- 

 ulate at the apex, sessile or short-petiolulate, 2 or sometimes 3-nerved, reticulate- 

 veined, rigid, bright green and rather paler on the lower than on the upper surface, 

 J^'-i' long. FlQ-wers light yellow, fragrant, appearing from the end of March to 

 the end of May, on slender pubescent pedicels from the axils of minute caducous 

 bracts, in narrow spikes. 1^' long, often interrupted below the middle, on slender 

 fascicled pubescent or sometimes glabrous peduncles; calyx obscurely 5-lobed, pubes- 

 cent on the outer surface, half as long as the spatulate petals slightly united at the 

 base, and ciliate on the margins; stamens \' long; ovary long-stalked, covered with 

 long pale hairs. Fruit fully grown early in the summer, deciduous in the autumn, 

 slightly falcate, compressed, stipitate, oblique at the base, rounded and short-pointed 

 at the apex, 2'^' long, V wide, with thick straight or irregularly contracted margins 

 and thin papery walls conspicuously marked by narrow horizontal reticulate veins; 

 seeds narrowly obovate, compressed, \' long, suspended transversely on long slender 

 funicles, light brown, mark6d by large oval depressions. 



A tree, occasionally 25-30 high, with a short trunk 10-12' in diameter, spread- 



