Descriptioe Notes 07h Papuan Plants. 
loa 
ADDITION. 
LEGUMINOS^. 
Acacia holosericea. 
All. Cunn. in G. Don’s Gen. Syst. of Dichlam. PI. ii. 407. 
Geelvink-Bajj Beccari ; River, D’ Albertis ; Baxter’s Rivers 
Reedy. 
This Papuan acacia is here drawn doubtfully to Cunning-ham’s tropical 
Australian plant, as the spikes have been seen only in a very young- 
state and no fruits have as yet been gathered in New Guinea. Moreover 
the Papuan plant is almost glabrous, its phyllodia are towards the 
summit more narrowed, and the lower confluence of their nerves is not 
usually at or near but somewhat remote from the edge ] it shows 
however the same short peduncles and manifest petioles as those of A. 
holosericea, by which means it is removed from A. latifolia. The fact, 
that Dr. Beccari gathered A. Simsii also at Humboldt’s Bay, proves 
that more than one Australian acacia extends to the north coast of New 
Guinea. But another question arises, whether the Papuan plant is 
combinable with A. Mangium (W. Sp. PI. iv. 1053) as Bentham 
(Transact. Linn. Soc. xxx. 495) and also Beccari suppose. Rumph 
(Herbar. Amboin. iii. 123) describes the phyllodia 5 inches long and 
1^ inches (by miswriting 1^ foot) broad, which accords with the Papuan 
plant, although he gives the size of the seeds smaller than flax-seeds ; 
his seemingly reduced figure leaves the question in doubts, which only 
can be solved by researching for the t}q)ical plant at tlie little islands 
close to Amboina. The short distance from thence to New Guinea 
speaks for the identity. 
A third phyllodineus acacia occurs on the Fly-River and Baxter’s 
River, with foliage not unlike that of A. polystachya, A. tumida, A. 
crassocarpa and A. auriculiforrais, but neither flowers nor fruits have 
been obtained. 
Mr. Allan Hughan gathered k. spirorbis (Labill. Sert. Austro-Caled. 
t. 09) or an allied species in the Loyalty-Islands, but in foliage only. 
