FLORA OF ADEN. 
194. 
Description : — A small or moderate-sized tree. Extremities brown, 
smooth, with short black and shining hooked infra-stipular prickles, or 
wholly unarmed. Leaves glaucous, scarcely exceeding 2 — 8 inches in 
length; pinnae lax in 2 — 3 pairs ; leaflets oblanceolate-or obovate-oblong, 
oblique, obtuse, often mucronulate, subsessile, in 3 — 5 pairs, J J inch 
long, — 2 lines broad above. 
Spikes axillary, solitary or fascicled, equalling or exceeding the leaves. 
Flowers subsessile. Calyx broadly and shortly toothed. Petals at least at 
first united about J their length. Ovary glabrous, shortly stipitate. 
Legume flat, oblong, often once or twice constricted owing to abortion 
of seeds, obtuse or pointed; valves thinly coriaceous, transversely reti- 
culate, glabrous, shortly stipitate, 2 — 3 inches long, § — 1 inch broad. 
Locality : — Aden (Defl., Schweinf.). 
Distribution : — Abyssinia, Nubia. 
The following species are cultivated in Aden and its immediate 
neighbourhood : 
8. Acacia arabica (Forsk.) Willd. Sp. PL IV, 1085 ; DC. Prodr. 
11,461; Hook. FI. Brit. Ind. II, 293; Benth. Lond. Journ. Bot. I, 
500 et Trans. Linn. Soc. XXX, 506; Schweinf. Linnsea XXXV, 335 > 
Oliv. FI. trop. Afr. II, 350. 
Mimosa arabica Lam. ; Roxb. Cor. PI. t. 149. 
Mimosa nilotica Forsk. FI. Aeg.-Arab. p. LXXVII. 
Acacia vera Willd. Sp. PI. IV. 1056. 
Arabic names : — Quaradd, sselm, sselam. 
Description — A large tree ; bark rough with deep narrow longitudinal 
fissures ; heart-wood pale red, when fresh cut nearly colourless, on 
exposure turning reddish-brown, Stipular spines straight, ^ — 2 inches long. 
Pinnae 3 — 6 pair, cup-shaped glands at the base of the lowest, and generally 
also of the uppermost pair. Leaflets small, linear, 10 — 20 pair 
Flowers golden-yellow, in globose heads, \ inch in diameter ;, 
peduncles slender, fasciculate ; a pair of scaly bracts in the middle. 
Pod solitary, moniliform, much contracted between seeds at both 
sutures, whitish-tomentose ; stalk | — | inch long. 
Schweinf urth says that the Aden plant is the f Indian form'’ with 
pods very much or only slightly constricted between the seeds. It is, 
nevertheless, quite probable that the seeds originally came from Arabia; 
but there is no reason for asserting that A. arabica is indigenous in 
A den. 
Flowers: — Aug. 1898 (Birdw.). 
Fruits — March (Schweinf.). 
