COLLECTED BY CAPTAIN STUET. 327 



Loc. In Herbario D. Sturt specimen exstat nulla sta- 

 tionis aut loci indicatione, sed eandem speciem ad fundum 

 sinus Spencer's Gulf dicti in sterilibus apricis anno 1802 



Desc. Prutex quadripedalis, ramosissimus. Phyllodia 

 semper aphylla, aversa, linearia, acuta, basi attenuata, plus 

 minusve falcato-incurva, biuncialia, I circiter uncise lata ex- 

 stipulata, paginis pube arctissime adpressa canescentibus, 

 margine superiore glandula unica depressa obsoleta. Flores 

 flavi, in umbella axillari 2-3 flora. 



Obs. Cassia phyllodinea is one of the very few species 

 of the genus, which, like the far greater part of New Hol- 

 land Acaciae, lose their compound leaves, and are reduced 

 to the footstalk, or phyllodium, as it is then called, and 

 which generally becomes foliaceous by vertical compression [79 

 and dilatation. A manifest vertical compression takes 

 place in this species of Cassia. 



A second species, Cassia circinata of Benth. in Mitch, 

 trop. Austr. p. 384, is equally reduced to its footstalk, but 

 which is without manifest vertical compression. To this 

 species may perhaps be referred Cassia linearis of Cunning- 

 ham MSS., discovered by him in 1817, but which appears 

 to differ in having a single prominent gland about the 

 middle of its phyllodium j Bentham's plant being entirely 

 eglandular. 



These two, or possibly three species, belong to the desert 

 tracts of the South Australian interior. In the same regions 

 we have another tribe of Cassise closely allied to the 

 aphyllous species ; they have only one pair of foliola which 

 are caducous, and whose persistent footstalk is more or 

 less vertically compressed. Along with these, and nearly 

 related to them, are found several species of Cassia, having 

 from two to four or five pairs of foliola which are narrow, but 

 their footstalks are without vertical compression, and their 

 foliola are caducous, chiefly in those, however, which have 

 only two pairs. 



