1508 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



ROBINIA HISPIDA, Rose Acacia 



Robinia hispida, Linnaeus, Mantissa, 101 (1767) ; Curtis, Bot. Mag. t. 311 (1795) ; Loudon, Arb. 



et Frut. Brit. ii. 627 (1838) ; Sargent, Siiva N. Amer. iii. 37 (1892). 

 Robinia hispida-rosea, Loiseleur, in Nouv. Duliatn. ii. 64 (1804). 

 Robinia rosea, Loiseleur, op. cit. t. 18 (1804). 

 Pseudacacia hispida, Moench, Meth. 145 (1794). 



A shrub, attaining about 10 ft. in height. Young branchlets covered with dense 

 pubescence, interspersed with glandular bristles, which persist in the second year. 

 Leaf-rachis with similar pubescence and bristles. Leaflets, seven to eleven, larger than 

 in the other species, 1 to 2 in. long, oval, rounded at the base, rounded or occasionally 

 slightly cuspidate at the apex, which is tipped with a long pubescent mucro ; glabrous, 

 except for slight pubescence on the midrib beneath ; stipels persistent ; petiolule, \ 

 to \ in. long, pubescent and glandular-hispid. 



Flowers few, five to nine, in loose pendulous racemes, pink, without odour ; calyx- 

 lobes all ending in long subulate teeth ; peduncles, axis, pedicels, and calyx covered 

 with white pubescence interspersed with glandular bristles. Fruit, 1 about 2 in. long, 

 slightly constricted between the seeds, covered with glandular bristles. The 

 stipules are usually deciduous, but occasionally develop on the older branchlets as 

 minute blunt spines. 



Two forms of this species and a probable hybrid are known : 



1. Var. typica, Schneider, Laubholzkunde, ii. 81 (1907), described above. This 

 is characterised by numerous glandular bristles on the branchlets and leaf- 

 rachis. 



2. Var. macrophylla, De Candolle, Prod. ii. 262 (1825). 



Var. inermis, Kirchner, Arb. Muse. 373 (1864). 

 Robinia macrophylla, Schrader, ex De Candolle, loc. cit. 



Glandular bristles few or none on the branchlets and leaf-rachis, but present on 

 the peduncles and calyx of the flower and on the pod. Leaves and flowers larger 

 than in the typical form. Var. macrophylla appears to have arisen in cultivation in 

 Europe. 2 



3. Robinia Kelseyi, Cowell, in Bailey, Cycl. Amer. Hort. 1538 (1902); 

 Hutchinson and Bean, in Bot. Mag. t. 8213 (1908). 



A small shrub, which originated 3 in H. P. Kelsey's nursery at Boston, U.S.A. 



1 Mr. T. Meehan, who studied this plant in the wild state in Tennessee, says that it produces fruit very rarely, and is 

 usually reproduced in the forests by root-suckers. He procured two pods in 1894, one of which he sent to the Kew herbarium. 

 Cf. Kew Bulletin, 1893, p. 341, and Nicholson, in Gardeners' Magazine, 1894, p. 118. Carriere, in Rev. Hort. xxxix. 431, 

 fig. 38 (1867), describes imperfect fruits which were produced on a tree at Paris. 



2 Cf. Carriere, Prod, et Fixat. Vars. 54 (1865), and in Rev. Hort. liv. 109 (1972). 



3 Mr. Kelsey in a letter to Kew says that it came up spontaneously in his nursery ; but supposes that it may have come 

 into his collection with seed of other plants from the southern Alleghany Mountains. 



With R. Kelseyi should be compared R. Boyntoni, Ashe, in/ourn. Elis. Mitch. Soc. xiv. part ii. p. 53 (1897), which I 

 have not seen. This is identified by Schneider, Laubhohkunde, ii. 82, note (1907) with R. hispida, var. rosea, Pursh. Fl. 

 Amer. Sept. ii. 488 (1814) ; and is said to occur in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. R. Boyntoni, 

 according to Ashe's description, is very similar to R. Kelseyi, but with glabrous fruit. Small, Flora South-eastern U.S. 613 

 (1903), however, says that the pod is hispid. 



