INTRODUCTION. 



gained through contributions of botanic amateurs mostly inspired by myself, and as 

 partly obtained through departmental emissaries, many of whom have long since passed 

 away from their earthly career. The original drawings for this work as well as their 

 lithographic delineations emanated from the skilled talent of Mr. Robert Graff, and 

 demonstrate patient perseverance as well as artistic accomplishment. In the selection 

 of the specimens for the plates and in the revision of the latter I had the able aid 

 of Mr. George Luehmann, Assistant in my Establishment. No plant has been admitted 

 into these pages, of which the material for detail-analysis was not fully extant, a 

 principle adhered to also in all the former illustra;ted publications of the author. Thus 

 many a species, as yet incompletely known, can by these decades be brought under 

 notice only in supplements, when — as time passes on — through facilitated traffic and 

 extended settlements also the remoter homes of many of the rarer Acacias shall have 

 come within easier reach. A work of this kind ought to have some bearing on our 

 educational efforts likewise, as by its dispersion through the Australian . dominions, not 

 merely as patterns for drawing or as text for some phytologic glossology, but also as 

 easy means for directing pleasurably the attention of residents all over Australia to 

 some of the leading features of the floral world near them, and this perhaps far 

 through the next century, when our rich-blooming or curious or fragrant Acacias, 

 while they have become widely naturalized elsewhere, will no longer extend in their 

 gayness and loveliness over all the vast pristine spaces occupied by them now ! 



