ACACIA SEEDLINGS. 



85 



sometimes revert to the original or ancestral type. Possibly 

 the above quoted example of A. aneura is such an instance. 



The point is certainly an interesting one, and as the 

 present work of examining seedlings proceeds, information 

 may be obtained which will admit of a more definite con- 

 clusion being arrived at in regard to the relative ages of 

 those species with one, and those with a pair of simply- 

 pinnate leaves. It has already been noticed in the case of 

 A. leiophylla that although the pair of pinnate leaves 

 appear at the same time, they are of unequal size, as though 

 in some way one has an ascendancy over the other, but in 

 the course of a week or two they become almost equal. In 

 the other three species mentioned the pinnate leaves of 

 each pair are equal in size from the time they first appear. 



Seeds. 



Acacia seeds vary in shape, size and colour. In shape 

 they may be compressed-globular, orbicular, ovate, obovate, 

 ovoid, ovate-oblong, obovate-oblong, oval-oblong, oblong, 

 and flat. In size they range at least from 3 mm. long by 

 nearly 2 mm. broad, as in the case of A. holosericea, and 

 up to a diameter of 1*1 cm. in the case of the flat seed of 

 A. Bid willi. 



The method adopted in raising seedlings has been to 

 place the seeds in a cup which is then filled with boiling 

 water and left for about two hours. The seeds are then 

 placed in pots and covered with about half an inch of light 

 soil. 



The oldest seeds used so far were eight years old, being 

 those of A. leprosa, but it is well known that Acacia seeds 

 will germinate after fifty years, and Professor Ewart of 

 Melbourne records having in two instances, germinated 

 Acacia seeds sixty-seven and sixty-eight years old. 1 In 



1 "On the Longevity of Seeds/' by Prof. Alfred J. Ewart, d.sc, ph.d., 

 f.l.s., Proc. Eoy. Soc. Victoria, xxi, (N.S.) pt. 1, 1908. 



