318 



APPENDIX IV. 

 ACACIAS OF THE NORTHERN TERRITORY. 



By 

 J. H. MAIDEN, F.R.S. 



[With PLATES XXVI. and XXVII.] 



PART I. 



The basis of our knowledge of the Acacias of the Northern Territory will be 

 found in Mueller's account* of those found by him in Gregory's Expedition of 

 1856. The paper, however, takes cognizance of species from other parts of 

 Australia. 



The expedition proper lasted from June to August, and went from the 

 mouth of the Victoria River, near Cambridge Gulf, Northern Territory, via the 

 Roper River to the Albert River on the south shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria 

 opposite Sweers Island (where Henne afterwards collected). 



Mr. A. C. Gregory, on the 7th January, 1857, Avrote to the Colonial Secre- 

 tary, Sydney, a " Third letter," giving an account of the " North Australian 

 Expedition," and this was ordered by the Legislative Assembly of N.S.\ . to be 

 printed on the 16th of the same month. A map accompanies this Report, 

 which makes the various botanical collecting stations quite clear. 



In Proc. Boy. Soc, N.S.W.,xiv., 81 (1880), Mueller adds "some data 



from my unpublished diaries of the expedition of 1855 and 1856 ' The 



collections formed by me in that particular region, now, after twenty-three 

 years, for the first time revisited by Mr. (Alexander) Forrest and his party, 

 were mostly destroyed on the passage from Timor to Sydney, so that many of 

 the localities now given from my journal remained ever since unrecorded." 



Mueller's paper was handed to Bentham (who had long since specialised 

 on Acacia), for editing, and at p. 115, Bentham, one of the most cautious of 

 botanists, says : "In the few cases where I clearly identified them with others 

 previously described, I have given the pubhshed names, adding his manuscript 

 names for the purpose of reference, and retaining his characters as completing 

 our previous knowledge of the plants." 



This surely was wise action. No one can defend the pubhcation of manu- 

 script names without due consideration. In the case of a huge genus, species 

 of which are spread over vast areas, sometimes difficult of access, so that ad- 

 ditional material may not again be available for half a century and even longer, 

 it may hinder the progress of knowledge to abstain from the pubhcation of a 

 manuscript name with its accompanying (perhaps incomplete) description, but 

 based on special knowledge. In Mueller's paper some names were considered 

 by Bentham to be synonyms which are now not so considered, and as one grows 

 in experience, additional evidence comes under one's notice that many of the 

 names and descriptions of the older botanists are not wrong, and should never 

 have been suppressed. In making these remarks I am chiefly referrmg to 



* A. — " Contributiones ad Acaciarum Australiae Cocjuitionem." Journ. Linn. Soc., 

 iii., IT 7'.". (ISIO). 



