Mimosa. polyandria monogynia. 555 



Trunk thick in proportion to the age and soil ; in the 

 above mentioned fifteen years old plant in the Botanic 

 garden, it is twenty-four inches in circumference. Bark 

 rough, olive grey, and like most of the genus, astringent. 

 Young shoots remarkably long, smooth, slender, and shin- 

 ing, and while very young, furrowed. Leaves alternate, 

 bipinnate ; from six to twelve inches long. Pinnce two 

 pair. Leaflets three or four pair, oblong-emarginate, lucid, 

 entire, from one to three inches long. Petiole common^ 

 ending in a two-cleft, powerful tendril ; all are polished, 

 without glands, but channelled. Stipules subulate, small, 

 embracing the branchlet. Spikes generally from four to 

 eight, on a common peduncle, from the axills of the former 

 leaves, upon the two or three years old branchlets, and 

 there is often more than one such peduncle in the same 

 axill. Rachis and the minute bracte clothed with ferrugin- 

 ous pubescence. Flowers numerous, small, pale yellow. 

 Calyx cup-shaped, five-toothed. Corol one-petalled, but 

 divided to very near the base into five lanceolate seg- 

 ments. Filaments ten, inserted into the short tube of 

 the corol. Anthers two-lobed, with a glandular point be- 

 tween them, Gen/i liiiear, containing many ovw/a. Style 

 the lengtli of the stamina. Stigma simple, but large. Le- 

 gumes of an immense size, often several feet in length, and 

 from four to five inches broad, spirally twisted, surround- 

 ed with a thick very firm, polished, entire rim, which is 

 found to remain, like a picture frame, when the less durable, 

 jointed body of the legume has disappeared ; joints from 

 ten to thirty, one-seeded, ligneous, swelled in the centre 

 where the seed is lodged, and more or less transversely 

 furrowed, otherw ise pretty smooth, and of a greenish ash 

 colour when ripe. Seeds sub-ovate, nearly as large as 

 a pullet's egg. Integument single, thick and hard, in fact 

 a powerful, polished, shining, chesnut-coloured nut. Peris- 

 perm none. Embryo straight. Cotyledons equal, conform 

 to the seed, amygdaline. Radicle patelliform, lodged at 

 the umbilicus of the seed. 



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