382 E. OC. ANDREWS. 
even in the most youthful stage, proclaim the relative 
youth of this family as compared with Ceesalpiniez and 
Papilionaceze, nevertheless it is the only family in which 
the corolla has been preserved in regular form, in which, 
moreover, the sestivation of the sepals and petals is valvate, 
and in which the stamens are almost always free. In all 
these points the family Mimoseze conforms to the ancestral 
types as suggested by a study of the allied orders. 
In the present chapter it has been deemed advisable to 
present brief notes only concerning a few of the tribes of 
the Leguminose, and to supplement these by a fuller 
description of the genus Acacia as illustrating the general 
trend of leguminous development in both Tertiary and Post- 
Tertiary time. 
Family PAPILIONACEA. 
_SOPHOREA.—Among the Papilionacee.the tribe of the 
Sophoreze may be considered as a descendant of luxuriant 
tropical forms. The members of this tribe appear to have 
been established firmly in the old world prior to the sepa- 
ration of Australia from Asia and Africa. No necessity 
appears to exist for removing Podalyriez from Sophoree, 
inasmuch as in each case the stamens are free, and the 
former are generally woody undershrubs varying in their 
morphology in various countries, while the latter are often 
shrubs and trees. Thus the Sophores, as a whole, remained 
in the fertile tropics and populated those lands only which 
possessed abundance of warmth and shelter. The tribe is 
old and decadent, as is suggested by the fact that it is 
widely-spread as very small genera over the tropical world, 
with stunted outliers in the temperateregions. It contains 
thirty-four genera but only one hundred and fifty-five 
species. Of these Sophora contains twenty-five, Ormosia 
twenty, and Baphia twelve species, the first two mentioned 
occurring throughout the warmer and fertile parts of the 
