BROAD-PODDED ACACIA. 35 
PI. Persoon. Synops., vol. 2. p. 265. Wield. Sp., vol. 4. p. 
1067. Macfadyen, Flor. Jam., vol. 1 . p. 318. 
Acacia non spinosa , siliquis latis compressis , flore albo. 
Peumier, (Ed. Burm.) tab. 6. 
This species, like many others of the genus, remark- 
able by its light waving feather-like foliage, is, according 
to Dr. Blodgett, rare at Key West, where it becomes a 
very large and spreading tree, flowering in the month of 
May. It is also a native of the West Indies and the 
warmer parts of the neighbouring continent, where it 
was found by Plumier and Aublet. According to Mac- 
fadyen, it is a cultivated plant in Jamaica. It bears a 
great resemblance to the Acacia figured by Catesby, tab. 
42, which is quoted as A. glauca , though by no means 
the same plant as plate 36 of Trew, which latter is the 
species most commonly cultivated under that name. 
The wood of this Acacia is said to be white, hard, 
and close-grained. The trunk, as described by Catesby, 
attains a diameter of three feet, and is accounted an 
excellent wood, next to the mahogany of Jamaica, and 
is the best to be found in the Bahama islands. For 
curious cabinet work it excels mahogany in its variable 
shining tints, wdiich appear like watered satin. Several 
species of the genus afford very hard and durable wood. 
The small branches in this species are grey, slender, 
and somewhat zigzag. The leaves are bipinnate, on 
main petioles, a little more than an inch long; between 
the first pair of pinnules, is usually seen on the petiole 
a projecting though sometimes merely a depressed gland, 
the next pairs are without glands to the summit of the 
leaf stalk, where there is then another depressed gland. 
The pinnules vary in our plant from 2 to 4 pair, (we 
have not seen 5.) The leaflets of the pinnule are oblong- 
elliptic, nearly smooth, obtuse, somewhat oblique, and 
rounded at base, in from 8 to 15 or 16 pairs. From the 
