May 1945 The Queensland Naturalist 
107 
War Savings Certificates 40 0 0 
Bank Balance 49 1 2 1 0 
- , ll T0tal 89 12 10 
Cash, in Hand 077 
£90 0 5 
E. N. MARKS, Hon. Treasurer. 
C. W. HOLLAND, Hon. Auditor. 
WATTLES OR ACACIAS OF THE BRISBANE 
DISTRICT 
By Mr. C. T. White. 
(Presidential address delivered before the Queensland 
Naturalists’ Club, 21st February, 1914.) 
No. 1.* 
Tlie family Leguminosae to which the wattles belong 
is one of the largest families of flowering plants. It is. 
exceptionally well developed in Australia and includes a 
number or beautiful flowering shrubs found here and 
nowhere else. The largest genus or group is Acacia which 
contains the wattles. The vernacular comes from the use 
of the twigs of these and other shrubs and trees in the 
making of the wattle and daub huts of the early colonists 
of New South Wales. 
The genus Acacia contains approximately 500 species 
widely spread over the tropics and subtropics of the world 
<ind finding its greatest development in Australia, between 
350 and 400 species occurring here. Twenty different 
wattles are found growing wild within a 15— mile radius of 
Brisbane, i.e., the area covered in our afternoon excursions. 
The Australian wattles belong to two groups : Firstly," 
one in which the leaf-functions are performed by flattened 
leaf-like bodies known as phyllodes. The true leaves, which 
are feather-like and somewhat similar to those of the 
Poinciana and Jaearanda, drop off at an early stage in the 
plant’s development; and, secondly, a group in which the 
leaves are all pinnate and finely divided, no phyllodes 
being formed. In the phyllodineous groups if a seedling 
*lt is intended to follow up this by other articles describing 
and illustrating the various species in the same way as the Eucalypts 
or Gum Trees were treated in earlier series gf the "Queensland 
Naturalist. ^ 
