322 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 



pinkish above, anthers small. Style slender. Fruit a 

 -dark coloured angular pod, with many seeds imbedded in 

 a sweet sugary substance. A useful food in famine times. 

 ACACIA ARABICA, Willd. A small flat topped tree 

 with straight greyish branches. Leaves alternate, with 

 a pair of spines in the place of stipules, pinnate, the 

 rachis with glands. Pinnas again pinnate with ten 

 to twenty pairs of oblong leaflets (about T\" by "). 

 Flowers minute, in yellow heads, on axillary pedun- 

 cles, several in each leaf axil, with bracts just above 

 the middle of the peduncle. Calyx campanulate toothed. 

 Corolla of four to five petals united above the base. 

 Stamens very many, filaments free, anthers exserted. 

 Ovary one-celled, style thin, stigmatic head small. 

 Fruit a flat grey pod, covered with soft hairs, in- 

 dented between the seeds. 



CHARACTERS OF THE MIMOSE^ 



The MIMOSE^E are mostly trees with bipinnate 

 leaves, furnished with a pulvinus to every part. Their 

 flowers are small, massed in heads or in spikes, quite 

 regular, with five (or four) petals which are in bud 

 valvate and usually stuck together above the base. 

 In some as in ADENANTHERA, the stamens are ten, in 

 others indefinite and very numerous, as in ACACIA. 

 The ovary is always one-carpelled with numerous seeds, 

 and the fruit is a thin or thick pod, which breaks 

 open irregularly, or splits along two edges. 



ADENANTHERA PAVONINA, L., has bright red seeds 

 (see p. 267). 



PARKIA BIGLANDULOSA, W. and A., is often grown 

 and is well-known because of the flowers being massed 



