40 NATIVE FLOWERS OF VICTORIA. 
CHAPTER V. 
The Legumes : The Wattles. 
T he Wattle (Acacia) is the national flower of Aus- 
tralia, and Wattle Day has made the cult of this 
flower both popular and world-famed. Victoria 
is well endowed with Wattles, nearly seventy species 
being found here; they may be found in aU corners 
of the State, and nearly every species is worth a place 
in the garden. The Wattles show considerable 
variation in form and size, some being very taU wide- 
spreading trees, others being low, almost trailing 
bushes, rambling along among herbage and low 
shrubs, only a few inches from the ground. The 
name Wattle is purely an Australian one, and has been 
adapted from the practice of “wattling,” or the 
weaving of the young pliable growths of these shrubs 
in the early days, to make fences and even houses — 
“wattle and daub,” or “wattle and dab,” as the 
method was called. The growths were intertwined 
and interwoven, afterwards being thickly smeared 
over with mud and clay. The houses were then 
roofed over with bark from the gum trees. In some 
parts of the world these plants are called ‘ ‘ Mimosa ; ’ ’ 
this is wrong, as the Mimosa is a distinct genus from 
the Acacia, which is the botanical name of the wattles, 
although belonging to the same family, and some of 
the species even shomng great similarity. There are 
no Mimosas in Australia. It is a pity, too, that some 
