24 WATTLES OR ACACIAS. 
unless replaced by scales or bristlets. Genuine stamens, pistils 
and embryonate seeds always developed. _ Cotyledon only one. 
First rudimentary leaves alternate. 
The third of the three great divisions of plants is formed by 
the Acotyledonee. These plants are devoid of real flowers, neither 
genuine stamens nor pistils nor embryonate seeds being developed ; 
hence the name also of Cryptogame for the acotyledonous plants, 
because the sexual organs are not visible without great micro- 
scopic enlargement. 
Among the Dicotyledones are included all our native trees 
except palms and fern-trees, almost every one of our numerous 
shrubs, all peaflowering plants, heaths, daisylike and asterlike 
flowers, the everlastings, Grevilleas, Hakeas, Sundews, Misletoes, 
Mints, which are merely mentioned as familiar examples. Among 
Monocotyledoneze we have here all lily-like plants, Orchids, 
Rushes, Sedges, Grasses, duckweeds, seagrasses, also our only 
palm ; while the Acotyledonez comprise the ferns, mosses, lichens, 
fungi and seaweeds or algze. 
II.—THE WATTLES OR ACACIAS 
AND ALLIED PLANTS. 
THE name Acacia, derived from the Greek, and indicative of a 
thorny plant, was already bestowed by the ancient Naturalist and 
Physician Dioscorides on a Gum-Arabic yielding North-African 
Acacia not dissimilar to some Australian species. This generic 
name is so familiarly known, that the appellation “ Wattle” 
might well be dispensed with, more especially as the English 
word referred originally to hurdles or wickerwork, for which our 
Wattles are not adapted. Indeed the name Acacia is in full use 
in works on travels and in many popular writings for the nume- 
rous Australian species also; and inasmuch as the genus is repre- 
sented likewise in Asia, Africa and America, where it is known 
