MIMOSA NILOTICA. ORD. XXV. Lomentacee, — 439 
site, furnished with a small gland between the outermost pair, 
and beset with numerous pairs of narrow elliptical pinnule, or 
leafits: the spines are long, white, spreading, and proceed from 
each side of the base of the leaves: the flowers are hermaphrodite 
and male, they assume a globular shape, and stand four or five 
together upon slender peduncles, which arise from the axille of 
the leaves: the calyx is small, bell-shaped, and divided at the 
mouth into five minute teeth: the corolla consists of five narrow 
yellowish segments: the filaments are numerous, capillary, and 
furnished with roundish yellow anthere: the germen is conical, 
and supports a slender style, crowned with a simple stigma: the 
fruit is a long pod, resembling that of the Lupine, and contains 
many flattish brown seeds, It is a native of Arabia and Egypt, 
and flowers in July. 
Dioscorides was certainly well acquainted with this tree, as he 
not only mentions the gum which it produces, but also the 
renowned Acacie vere succus,” obtained from its pods; since his 
time, however, it has been thought that gum arabic is not the 
production of the Acacia or Mimosa, as it is now called; but the 
accounts given by Alpinus, and those of subsequent naturalists, 
leave no doubt upon this subject.* 
Although the Mimosa nilotica grows in great abundance over 
the vast extent of Africa, yet gum arabic is produced chiefly by 
* The M. nilotica was cultivated in England by Evelyn in 1664. Kalend. h. p. 75. 
A plant of this species is now in the Royal Garden at Kew, about four feet in 
height: and in Dr. Lettsom’s garden at Grove Hill, where it flowers annually. 
» The pod, and manner of preparing the juice, are thus mentioned by Murray: 
«¢ Ex fructu elicitur, qui ipse legumen est complanatum yiridi brunum, quatuor yel 
quinque pollices longum et octies vel decies angustius, compositum ex sex vel 
decem partibus vel articulis discoideis et intra utramque cuiiculam parenchyma 
gummosum rubicundum continens, In quoyis articule latet sewem ellipticum 
sulco utringne pariter elliptico notatum. Succus exprimitur ex fructu immaturo 
in mortario contuso, et calore in spissitudinem extracti densatur,” &c. Vide App. 
Med. vol, ii. p. 412. 
Hasselquist. Adapson, Sparrman, and others. 
