Frangipanni 



525 



VII. FRANGIPANNI 



GENUS VACHELLIA WIGHT AND ARNOTT 



Species Vachellia Farnesiana (Linnaeus) Wight and Arnott 



Mimosa Farnesiana Linnaeus. Acacia Farnesiana Willdenow 



[LSO called Yellow opopanax, Sponge wood, Cassie, and Huisache, this 

 is a small monotypic tree or shrub, probably native in Texas, thence 

 southward to Chile, but is naturalized throughout the tropics, and 

 occurs in our area from Florida to southern California, reaching a 



maximum height of 9 meters, with a trunk diameter of 4.5 dm. 



The trunk is short, its branches are somewhat drooping, wide-spreading, form- 

 ing a beautiful round-headed tree; the thin bark 



is broken into long ridges, peeling off in long 



thin red-brown scales; the twigs are slender, 



round, or slightly angular, smooth or nearly so, 



and armed with round, stiff whitish spines often 



2.5 cm. long. The leaves are deciduous, evenly 



bipinnate, 4 to 8 cm. long, including the slender 



short leaf-stalk; there are 3 to 8 pairs of pinnae 



1.5 to 3 cm. long, sessile or nearly so, with 10 to 



25 pairs of leaflets, which are linear-oblong, 2 to 



6 mm. long, usually blunt pointed, unequal at 



the base, sessile or nearly so, light green and 



smooth on both sides. The flowers are very 



fragrant, bright yellow, appearing in summer 



and autumn in globular heads, which are white- 

 woolly before the flowers open, on slender hairy 



peduncles 2.5 to 3 cm. long, in axillary clusters 



of I to 3 heads; the calyx is shallowly 5-lobed, 



half as long as and very similar in form and 



texture to the tubular corolla, which is 5-lobed, 



about 1.5 mm, long; stamens numerous, 2 to 3 times as long as the corolla, their 



filaments distinct; ovary sessile and hairy; style fiHform. The fruit is stout, often 



thicker than wide, oblong or cylindric, straight or shghtly curved, 3 to 7.5 cm. 



long, 1.5 cm. thick, contracted to a short thick point and narrowed to a very 



short stalk at the base, dark brown or purpHsh, somewhat shining, marked on the 



edges by a yellowish band, broadly grooved; seeds surrounded by a pulp and 



placed transversely in two distinct rows, oval, thick, 6 mm. long, hght brown and 



shining. 



The wood is close-grained, hard, brownish red; its speciflc gravity is about 



0.83. 



It is largely cultivated in southern Europe for its flowers, which are used in 



Fig. 486. Frangipanni. 



