182 TEAXS ACTIONS AND PEOCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. Lvm. 



III. On Plants in the Plant Houses, with Exhibi- 

 tion OF Specimens. By Pi. L. Hakrow. 



About sixty species of plants have flowered in the 

 houses of the Eoyal Botanic Garden during February, this 

 number being a decided increase upon that of the preceding 

 month. The earlier flowering Acacias have done much, 

 with their numerous heads of usually bright yellow flowers, 

 to give the several houses containing them a bright appear- 

 ance. Conspicuous amongst them being the well-known 

 A. cUalhata, Link., so commonly seen in the windows of 

 florists ; the greater quantity of the supply for our markets 

 coming from the Eiviera, where it is very successfully 

 cultivated out of doors. M. Yilmorin, in a paper read 

 before the Pioyal Horticultural Society, mentions an artificial 

 process to facilitate the opening of the flowers of this 

 species in that district : — " The flowering branches are cut a 

 week or so before they would bloom in the open, and are 

 submitted, with their butt end steeped in water, to the 

 action of moderately heated steam. The flowers expand in 

 from ten to twenty hours, and last as long afterwards as if 

 cut direct from the tree." 



Amongst the others exhibited are A. discolor, Willd., a 

 stifi'-growing plant with long spikes of flowers lasting for a 

 considerable period, native of Xew South Wales, and intro- 

 duced in 1788. 



A. melanoonjlon, E. Br. From Australia, with large balls 

 of light yellow flowers, the plant being bush-like in habit, 

 bearing rather large leathery phyllodes ; the native name 

 being Blackwood. 



A. longifolia, Willd. The spikes are thickly crowded 

 with small flowers, the phyllodia being linear lanceolate. 

 It is of an erect habit of growth. 



A. Latrolei, Meissn. This is an extremely graceful, free- 

 flowering plant, with small phyllodes ; the flower-heads 

 solitary, and produced a good distance from the apex of 

 the shoot. 



A. imhricata, F. Mueller. Very similar as regards its 

 flowering, but difiering in its more loose mode of branching, 

 and the phyllodes being rather larger. 



A. fcrticillata, Willd. This is a distinct species, with 



