WATTLES AND WATTLE-BARKS. 



Appendix L 



BOTANICAL NOTES ON THE GENUS ACACIA. 



The following elementary botanical notes are given in the hope that they 

 may be of some little use to country residents in their studies in regard to 

 this important group of trees. 



The word Acacia is derived from the Greek, and denotes a thorny plant, 

 and was given to this genus on account of so many of the species being 

 spinescent. It was originally applied by the ancient naturalist Dioscorides 

 to a North African shrub yielding a gum-arabic. 



The leaves of most Australian Acacias are structurally simply an expansion 

 or flattening out of the petiole or leaf stalk. Such " leaves" are known as 

 phyllodes. Phyllodinous Acacias have true leaves when they are very young 

 seedlings, and some species belonging to the same category also have a 

 greater or less tendency to the formation both of true leaves and pJiyllodes. 

 This variation appears often to puzzle beginners in wattle growing. !For 

 example, Acacia pycnantha produces pinnate leaves in the seedling state, and 

 I have received complaints such as the following : " The seeds sent as 

 pycnantha are coming up decurrens" Again, people accustomed to decurrens 

 want reminding that there are wattles with other kinds of foliage. Here 

 are the exact words of an anxious correspondent, and doubtless others have 

 felt the same difficulty. I may mention that a trial package of pycnantha 

 seed had been sent to him. 



" I planted the seed according to directions ; they duly germinated ; when 

 about two inches high the wattle leaves appeared to merge into gum leaves 

 (pliyllodes, J.H.M.), at the upper ends of which wattle leaves afterwards 

 sprang out, and now many of the plants look more like young gum trees 

 than wattle trees. 



" "Would you kindly inform me if this is the manner in which the true 

 South Australian wattle grows, or have the plants I have raised become 

 inoculated?" 



