DESMANTHUS BRACHYLOBUS. 

 ILLINOIS ACACIA. 



NATURAL ORDER, LEGUMINOS^. 



Desmanthus brachylobug, Bentham. — Nearly glabrous perennial, erect, one to four feet high ; 

 partial petioles six to fifteen pairs; leaflets twenty to thirty pairs; stamens five; pods 

 oblong or lanceolate, curved, scarcely one inch long, two to six-seeded. (Gray^s Manual 

 of the Botany of the Northern United States. See also Wood's Class-Book of Botany.') 



^JHERE was a time when plants which had not gaudy 

 colored flowers were thought unworthy of popular 



admiration. But in these days we find beauty in Hues, and in the 

 relations of parts to the whole ; beauty in expression, as well as 

 beauty in general habit and appearance. Ferns, Palms, and 

 other plants with no colors but brown or green, are now sought 

 for with as much zest as the Rose or the Tulip; and indeed what 

 are called " foliage plants," or those which have nothing to 

 recommend them but what may be found in the leaves, are in 

 high favor with persons of the most cultivated tastes. The 

 plant which we now illustrate has nothing that would popu- 

 larly be called flowers ; for there seems to be only five long- 

 slender silk-like greenish-white stamens projecting from a small 

 green base, and these united into a little bunch of about six or 

 eight together, forming an insignificant tassel-like mass ; but it 

 is one which will have an interest for all who love pretty foliage. 

 A good stocky plant growing in one's garden, and in contrast 

 with more pretentious flowers, is sure to attract general attention. 

 The plant from which the drawing was taken grew in the garden 

 of the writer, from seeds gathered by him in Texas in 1873, and 

 is always admired by those who see it. It will not, however, 

 allow itself to be roughly used, and a branch soon withers or 



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