ACACIA CULTRIFORMIS. 
(Coulter -shaped-leaved Acacia.) 
Class. 
POLYGAMIA. 
Order. 
MONCECIA. 
Natural Order. 
LEGUMINOS/E. 
Generic Character.— C'a?^/^ four or five-toothed. 
Petals four or five, sometimes free, and sometimes 
joined together into a four or five-cleft corolla. Sta- 
mens variable in number, from 10 to 200 in each floAver. 
Legume continuous, dry, two-valved — Don's Gard, and 
Botany. 
Specific Character. — Branches smooth, angular; 
phyllodia cultriform, ending in an acute hooked mu- 
crone, which leans to one side, and furnished with a 
gland on the middle of the upper margin, one-nerved, 
the nerve nearly parallel with the lower margin ; 
heads crowded ; disposed in racemes. 
Few families of plants are more extensive than the genus Jcacia, or abound 
more with really handsome and ornamental species. Among so great a number 
we are naturally led to look for considerable difference in the qualities that render 
them valuable in the eyes of the culturist, and also in some individuals so near an 
approximation to each other in general lineaments and habits, as to render the 
discovery and definition of any tangible distinction extremely difficult. 
The casual observer would scarcely notice any material dissimilarity between 
A. cultriformis and many other nearly allied species, which present an air and 
habit in many respects strikingly uniform, but are yet marked with peculiar and 
very characteristic distinctions, though less obvious and glaring. A. dolabri/ormis 
and A, scapuliformis are both very similar to it. The latter may be known by the 
leaves being a little longer, and having a rather more robust habit, the whole plant 
also being more profusely covered with a silvery glaucous bloom. A. dolahriformis 
is still less glaucous, and there is also a difference in the inflorescence, whilst the 
leaves or phyllodia are less rigid, and are destitute of the small gland near the 
middle, which is common to both the other two. 
In the earlier months of the year there are few plants more engaging, or more 
useful in the decoration of the greenhouse, than the different species of Acacia^ 
laden with an almost over-abounding number of their unassuming and modest- 
looking globular heads of golden flowers. The light, airy, and elegant, appearance 
of the slender branches and small phyllodia, form, even when not enlivened with 
