ACACIA 



Acacia, Adanson, Fam. des Flantes, ii. 319 (1763); Willdenow, Si>. PI. iv. 1049 (1805); Bentham 

 et Hooker, Gen. PL i. 594 (1865). 



Trees, shrubs, climbers, and rarely undershrubs, belonging to the division Mimoseae 

 of the order Leguminosae, Branchlets with or without stipular or infra-stipular 

 spines. Leaves alternate, either compound and equally bipinnate with minute 

 leaflets, or reduced to simple phyllodes,^ which are equivalent to dilated and 

 flattened petioles, with their surfaces placed vertically. 



Flowers, yellow or white ; in globose heads, cylindrical spikes, or panicles, 

 which are solitary or fascicled in the axils ot the leaves ; or panicled and ending the 

 branchlets ; perfect or polygamous, small, regular : sepals five, four, or three, rarely 

 absent, free or united ; petals as many as the sepals, free or united ; stamens 

 numerous, free or slightly connate at the base ; ovary sessile or stalked, with 

 usually numerous (rarely only two) ovules ; style long and slender, ending in a 

 minute stigma. Pod linear or oblong ; flat or nearly cylindrical ; straight, falcate, or 

 twisted ; opening by two valves or indehiscent. Seeds, more or less flattened, 

 usually marked on each face with an oval or horseshoe-shaped depression, oblique 

 spot or ring ; funicle filiform or thickened into a flat aril under or around the seed. 



About 450 species of Acacia are known, natives of the warmer parts of the 

 world, and occurring in Africa, Asia, America, Australia, and Polynesia. 



A considerable number of species are cultivated under glass in this country ; 

 but in the south-west of England, and in the south of Ireland, four oi" five species, 

 some of which are shrubs, have succeeded out-of-doors. Two of these species, 

 representative of the two kinds of foliage which occur in the genus, will now be 

 described. 



ACACIA DEALBATA, Silver Wattle 



Acacia dealbata, Link, Enum. Hort Berol. ii. 445 (1822); \.oM\gt% Bot. Cab. t. 1928 (1833); 

 Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 666 (1838) ; J. D. Hooker, Fl. Tasm. i. 1 1 1 (i860) ; Bentham, FL 

 Austral, ii. 415 (1864); Gamble, Indian Timbers, 301 (1902); Rodway, Tasm. Fl. 43 (1903). 



Acacia irrorata, Sieber, ex Sprengel, Syst. iii. 141 (1826). 



Acacia decurrens, Willdenow, var. dealbata. Von Mueller ex Maiden,- Forest Flora N. S. Wales, iii. 

 56 (1908). 



An evergreen tree, attaining occasionally in Tasmania 100 ft. in height and 



1 These phyllodes are not leaves turned edgeways, as is shown by the fact that they are not twisted at the base. 

 Moreover, phyllodes are occasionally produced, which bear bipinnate leaves at their ends. On seedlings of the species of 

 Acacia with phyllode foliage, the first leaves are bipinnate ; succeeding leaves have flattened stalks with fewer leaflets ; 

 ultimately only phyllodes are produced. 



1697 



