ACACIA CULTRIFORMIS. COULTER-SHAPED-LEAVED ACACIA. 
Class XXIII. POLYGAMIA.— Order I. MONCECIA. 
Natural Order, LEGUMINOS^. THE PEA TRIBE. 
Generic Character — Calyx four or five-toothed. Petals four or five, sometimes free, and sometimes 
joined together into a four or five-cleft corolla. Stamens variable in number, from 10 to 200 in each flower. 
Legume continuous, dry, two-valved. — Don’s Gard. and Botany. 
Specific Character. — Branches smooth, angular; phyllodia cultriform, ending in an acute hooked 
mucrone, 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. 
Acacia is a very extensive genus, including upwards of 320 known species, most of which are hand- 
some trees or shrubs. Some of them are physiologically interesting, not only for the conversion of their 
stipules into spinacules, but, as in the New Holland Acacise, for the abortion of the true leaves, and the 
expansion of the petioles into leaf-like organs, called Phyllodia, the normal compound foliage being present 
only in the seedling plants. The phyllodia in A. ornithophora are curious in their shape, having a strong 
resemblance in their outline to the figure of a bird; and hence the specific name. A. pilosa is remarkable 
for having stipules as well as thornlets, the spinacules in general being the metamorphosed stipules : and 
A. cornigera, for its thorny stipules being extremely large, and so very similar to the horns of an ox, that 
the plant in common parlance has received a fearful name. 
The bushy Acacia: form excellent hedges, and in their wild state impenetrable thickets, such for 
example as A. detinens, which so often arrests the traveller by its thorns, and A. latronum, the groves of 
which are not only secure retreats to the smaller animals, but become as it were cities of refuge to rogues 
and runaways, for pursuit is vain where it spreads its protecting arms ; and hence indeed it has been speci- 
fically called the “Rogue’s Acacia.”' 
Other Acacise, on the contrary, are of economical importance, such especially as the gum-bearing 
species, and those which abound in astringent principles fit for tanning. 
Erythrophleum Guineense is the Gregree or Ordeal-tree of Sierra Leone and Guinea. The generic name 
refers to the red juice with which the stem and branches abound. This tree, like our trial by battle, is 
appealed to by the ignorant natives to declare God’s judgment, and the effects which follow the ordeal are 
considered as proofs of the guilt or innocence of accused persons. 
The juice, or a decoction of the wood is given to the accused to drink, and if vomiting occurs without 
being followed by death, the parties are declared innocent ; but if they die, they are condemned as guilty. 
The irritability of the stomach or the will of the judge, in reality is thus the gauge of guilt ! for, if the 
fault be slight, or the judge inclined to favour the prisoner, a portion of the bark is given him to chew, which 
is invariably rejected by the stomach, and the accused escapes ! but if the charge be grave, or the judge un- 
favourable, the decoction of the wood is given, and then the accused has little chance. 
The savages of America have consecrated the acacia to the genius of chaste love; their bows are 
made from the incorruptible wood of this tree, their arrows are armed with one of its thorns. These fierce 
children of the desert, whom nothing can subdue, conceive a sentiment full of delicacy ; perhaps what they 
are unable to express by words, but they understand the sentiment by the expression of a branch of blooming 
acacia. The young savage understands this seducing language, and receives blushing the homage of 
him who has won her heart by respect and by love. 
It is not more than a century since the forests of Canada yielded us this beautiful tree. The botanist 
Robin, who first brought it us, gave it his name. The acacia, when spreading its light shade in our groves, 
with its scented flowers, and sweet and fresh verdure, seems to prolong the spring. The nightingale loves 
to confide its nest to this new inhabitant of our climate ; the lovely bird, assured by the long and strong 
thorns which protect its family, sometimes descends upon the lowest branches of the tree, to make 
its ravishing notes the better heard. 
The acacia has been made the emblem of domestic beauty by an anonymous writer, who thus speaks of 
it: — “Tints of the white, the golden, and the red rose are beautifully intermingled with the rich blossoms of 
the acacia. It is found in the most retired places, and it blooms the fairest in the closeness of its own foliage. 
It loves the mossy rock and the solitary grove, and pines away in the garden and crowded parterre. 
Nourmahal sings: — 
Our rocks are rough, but smiling there I For flowering in a wilderness — 
The acacia waves her yellow hair, | Then come — thy Arab maid will be 
Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less | The loved and lone acacia tree. 
