376 



Cambridge, and we found it to be identical with Bentham's 

 A. salicina, var. varians. Although of a weeping willow -like 

 habit this plant has broader leaves than A. ligulata, A. 

 Cunn., which, as you say, is nothing like a willow, but is an 

 erect bush. It is quit-e clear from Bentham's notes on the 

 herbarium sheets that he applied the name A . salicina to the 

 narrow-leaved A . ligulata, and redescribed the real A . salicina. 

 as var. varians. We have Cunningham's type of A. ligulata. 



''Your contention, therefore, is correct, that the 'Native 

 Willow' (specimens 1 and 2) is ^ . salicina, Lindl. (syn. A. 

 salicina, var. varians, Benth.), and the 'Umbrella Bush' 

 (specimens 3-9) is A. ligulata, A. Cunn. (syns. A. salicina, 

 Benth., non Lindl.; A. salicina, var. Wayae, Maiden"). 



It is unnecessary to give here the systematic history of 

 these two species, as that has been done very fully by Mr. J. 

 H. Maiden in his Forest Flora of N.S. Wales, iv., 146-152 

 (1910). At that date, however, Bentham's^ error was not 

 known in Australia, and Mr. Maiden considered the large 

 Umbrella Bush (A. ligulata) to be the normal form of A. 

 salicina, and also dealt with a smaller maritime form of the 

 Umbrella Bush as A.' salicina, var. Wayae. In these Trans- 

 actions, xli., 641 (1917), I urged that the two plants (Native 

 Willow and Umbrella Bush) were distinct species and detailed 

 the characters which differentiate them, but the nomenclature 

 which I adopted was erroneous, the Native Willow (A. 

 salicina) being there termed A. varians, Benth., and the 

 Umbrella Bush A., shlicina. I. had, at the time, a strong 

 feeling that these names could not be the correct ones, and 

 added: — "One would suppose prima facie that the 'curious 

 willow-like acacia' found by Major Mitchell near Oxley, on 

 the Lachlan, in 1836, and described by Lindley as A. salicina, 

 was the Cooba, or Native W^illow." 



Mr. Maiden gives, opposite p. 150, an excellent photo- 

 graph of Native Willows growing on the Hillston Road, near 

 Gunbar. This locality is not very far from the Lachlan 

 Kiver, and the trees shown are doubtless co-types of Lindley' s 

 .4. salicina. On specimens gathered near the Bocky River, 

 South Australia, I have seen the "numerous reddish minute 

 drops of resin" sprinkled on the young phyllodes, as mentioned 

 by Mitchell in his original note on the tree. 



The type of A. ligulata was collected by Cunningham 

 at Dirk Hartog Island, near Shark Bay, Western Australia, 

 probably on January 21, 1822, when he landed on that 

 island, and observed its "barren, parched appearance." The 

 same shrub has also been found on the south coast of that 

 State. It therefore stretches right across Australia from the 

 Indian Ocean to at least as far east as the Darling, the 



