Addisonia S 



(Plate 195) 



ACACIA PULCHELLA 

 Beautiful Acacia 



Native of West Australia 

 Family Mimosaceae Mimosa Family 



Acacia pulchella R. Br.; Ait. Hort. Kew. ed. 2. 5: 464. 1813. 



This acacia was introduced into cultivation about 1803. It is 

 quite in contrast with the other species illustrated here, being of 

 compact growth with the branches rather intricately massed; it 

 usually bears spines in the axils of the leaves. Arising from the 

 axils of the upper leaves are solitary slender stalks, much exceeding 

 the leaf, bearing a solitary globose head of flowers which is unusually 

 large for the size of the plant. A plant of this, a compact mass of 

 dark green covered with the numerous heads of orange flowers, is 

 a most charming object, either as a pot plant or as a permanent 

 feature, planted out, in the cool conservatory. From such a plant 

 in the central display house, range 2, New York Botanical Garden, 

 has the illustration been prepared. 



The beautiful acacia is a rather low usually glabrous shrub of 

 dense habit and intricate branching, the leaves of a single pair of 

 pinnae, and the orange flowers in solitary heads on slender stalks 

 in the upper leaf-axils. The pinnae are a quarter to three eighths 

 of an inch long and about a quarter of an inch wide, with four to 

 seven pairs of leaflets which are about an eighth of an inch long and 

 oblong-hnear, or sometimes a little broader at the obtuse apex. 

 The flower-heads are a quarter to five sixteenths of an inch in diam- 

 eter, solitary, on slender stalks up to a half inch long. The flat pod 

 has thickened margins, and is one to two inches long. The seeds 

 are oblong and placed longitudinally. 



George; V. Nash. 



Explanation of Plate. Fig. l. — Flowering branch. Fig. 2. — Flower, X 4. 

 Fig. 3.— Pistil, X 4. Fig. 4.— Fruit. 



