12 ■ ON ACACIAS. 



3. Wliile, orange, white, yellow, is not so good as the last, nor perhaps 

 as the first ; there is too much white." 



( To be continued.) 



ON ACACIAS. 



In your useful and interesting Notices of New and Rare Plants, par- 

 ticularly in the noble collection at the Royal Gardens of Kew, during 

 the last two seasons, I was much pleased witli the remarks on a con- 

 siderable number of Acacias grown tliere. Tliey compose a most 

 charming tribe of plants, each very distinct from the otiiers, although 

 the prevailing colour is a rich yellow. All are deseiA'ing of a place 

 in every greeidionse. Their peculiar beauty and fiagrance in the early 

 period of the year highly entitle them to every attention, and tiie varied 

 neat growth and form of foliage enhance their value. 



Lately a publication on the Flora of Australia has been put into my 

 hands, and as that is tiie native country of nearly all the Acacias, I 

 have extracted some particulars of tiiese lovely trees and shrubs, as 

 displayed in their native climate. Admirers of the tribein this country 

 may be assisted in forming collections of the best, for nearly all have 

 been introduced, and can be procured at the principal nurseries. 

 , The forests of New South Wales contain immense quantities of 

 species of Acacia, which, under various naines, are well known to the 

 natives and colonists, and are of considerable value not only for timber 

 but various other useful products. Thus a gum very similar in properties 

 to gum arabic, is produced by the Silver Wattle (^Acacia moUissima), 

 a shrub about eight feet high, with pinnate lea\es, and the copious 

 yellow flowers collected in globose heads; also by A. decurrens, a 

 beautiful shrub, very like the last ; and also by the Black Wattle {A. 

 affinis), a plant of sindlar stature to the others, but with shortened 

 flattened leaf-stalks instead of leaves, and heads of yellow flowers. 

 This gum forms a material article of diet to the natives at certain sea- 

 sons, and is also collected by the coloni.sts. The bark of these and 

 other Acacias also yields great quantities of a tanning principle much 

 stronger in its operation on leather than oak bark, which has been 

 imported into England in some quantities in the form of an extract, 

 procured by boiling down tiie bark. Other sorts of wattles, as the 

 Acacias are generally called in New Holland, are among the hand- 

 somest of shrubs; as A. pubescens, which has a light feathery pinnate 

 foliage, slender, rattier drooping habit, and produces a great profusion 

 of spikes of golden-coloured flowers, arranged in little balls. A. oxy- 

 cedrus, also growing to about ten feet high, with an upright rigid 

 habit, sharp spiny leaf-stalks or phyllodia, and dense spikes of rich 

 yellow flowers. A. leucophylla is a graceful drooping plant, with thin 

 angular branches, linear sickle-shaped leaves (phyllodia), which, as well 

 as the young branches, are densely clothed with silvery hairs or down; 

 the flowers are produced in bunches in the axils of the leaves. A. 

 salicina has the appearance of a graceful drooping willow, with narrow 

 oblong lance-shaped leaves covered with bloom, and bunches of yellow 



