WATTLES OR ACACIAS. 25 
by its scientific appellation also vernacularly, it will be best to 
maintain the generic word, which has been in use since our 
Christian era. Few of any genera of plants contain more species 
than Acacia, and in Australia it is the richest of all; about 300 
species, as occurring in our continent, have been clearly defined. 
This enormous number of congeneric plants can conveniently be 
separated into two main groups, according to the structure of 
their leaves, whether consisting of a simple blade, or whether 
formed by distinct leaflets. The first of this primary division is 
called that of the Phyllodinee, from a Greek word implying 
leaf-like form, because the supposed simple leaves are in reality 
formed by the confluence of leaflets, stalklets and stalks into one 
leaflike mass, or according to the more generally adopted but 
less accurate views simply dilated leafstalks (phyllodia) ; this 
metamorphosis is most readily demonstrated and proved by ob- 
serving the apparently simple-leaved Acacias in early growth, 
when the first leaves developed by the young seedling will be 
found to be compound, consisting of leaflets arranged in two 
rows, thus forming pinne, several again of these pinne forming 
the bipinnate leaf, the axes along which the leaflets are placed 
being also arranged in a pinnate manner. What in the phyllodi- 
neous division of the genus Acacia is noticed only on the first 
leaves of the young plant, becomes normal throughout for the 
second group, that of the Bipinnatee. 
Of each of these two divisions one or two species interests us 
here pre-eminently, the Black Wattle with its variety the Silver- 
Wattle among the Bipinnate; the Golden Wattle and the 
Blackwood-tree among the Phyllodinez, all three being of fre- 
quent occurrence, of tall growth among their kinds and of lead- 
ing technic utility. 
The Black Wattle (Acacia decurrens).—A small or mid- 
dle-sized tree, but in deep forest-glens attaining to a height of 
100 feet or even more. Branchlets angular (hence the species 
name), usually short downy. Leaves consisting of 5-18 pairs of 
feather-like pinnee, seldom less in number, at the earliest stage 
‘s well as the branchlets grey or golden-downy ; leaflets linear, 
6—60-paired, 4-4 of an inch long, blunt, sessile; primary axis 
