22 



PLATE 245. 



ACACIA KEAUSSIANA, Meisn. (Fl. Cap. Vol. ii., p. 283). 

 Natural Order, LEGOMINOS^E. 



A rambling shrub with white flowers. Stems slender, flexuous, branching, 

 bark green. Branches angular, pubescent, armed with numerous small, scattered, 

 recuived prickles, which are green at base, and brown in upper portion. Leaves 

 abruptly bipinnate, stipulate, stipules acuminate, deciduous, pinnae in 3-5 opposite 

 pairs, common petiole 3-5 inches long, armed with prickles like the branches, 

 swollen at base and with an oblong gland just above the swelling, and a globose 

 one at the base of the terminal pair of pinnae ; striate ; pinnae opposite, their 

 petioles swollen at base, but glandless, and without prickles, finely pubescent, ] 

 to 2 inches long. Leaflets in 6 to 1 2 opposite pairs, with a pair of minute bract- 

 like ones above base of petiole ; obliquely oblong, mucronate at apex, unequal 

 sided at base, quite entire, 2-| to 8 lines long, 1 to 4 lines wide, bright green, 

 glabrous, finely pubescent. Inflorescence in axillary and terminal racemose 

 panicles. Peduncles slender, with many scattered prickles, especially on lower 

 portion ; secondary peduncles minutely pubescent. Heads globose, about 20 

 flowered ; spreading to to f inch diameter. Calyx gamosepalous, 5-fid, sub- 

 sessile, cylindrical with rounded base, pubescent, 1 line long. Corolla 5-lobed, 

 lobes acuminate, a little longer than calyx. Stamens numerous, filaments more 

 than twice the length of calyx and corolla. Anthers minute, 2-celled, cells 

 globose, pollen aggregate in subglobose masses, 2-4 in each cell. Legume flat, 

 compressed, margined, membranous, glabrous, several seeded, stipitate. 



Habitat : NATAL : Coast districts. Verulam 3-500 feet alt., February, Wood 

 No. 461 ; near Durban, 150 feet alt., April, Wood No. 6413 ; Berea, January, 150 

 feet alt., Wood No. 8021. 



Drawn and described from Wood's No. 8021. 



The genus Acacia is a large one including more than 400 species, which are 

 widely distributed in the warmer parts of the world, in Australia very plentiful. 

 In South Africa we have about 1 5 species, while in Tropical Africa nearly 40 are 

 found. The presence of a stalked gland on the anthers is unusual in the genus, 

 but common in many of the genera of the Sub-Order Minosae to which Acacia 

 belongs. The native name is u-Bobo. 



Fig. 1, calyx opened; 2, corolla opened; 3, stamen with gland; 4, ovary, 

 style and stigma ; 5, legume, natural size ; except Fig. 5, all enlarged. 



