46 
No. 196. 
Acacia brachybotrya Benth. 
A Blue Bush. 
(Family LEGUMINOS>E : MIMOSE^E.) 
Botanical description. Genus, Acacia. (See Part XV, p. 103.) 
Botanical description. Species, A. brachybotrya Bentham in Hooker's London 
Journal of Botany, i, 347 (1842). 
The original is as follows : 
Pubescens, ramulis subangulatis, phyllodiis oblique obovatis obtusissimis rarius mucronulatis 
marginulatis eglandulosis uninerviis, racemis toinentosis 3-5-cephalis phyllodio brevioribus, capitulis 
multifloiis tomentotis. Phyllodia 6-9 lin. longa. Racemi in specimine brevissimi, sed flores nondum 
evoluti. Peel's Range, N. S. Wales, Cunningham. [The italics are mine.] 
Bentham himself later on described it in English, as follows : 
A handsome shrub of several feet, glabrous, glaucous or silvery-white with a close silky-pubescence, 
branchlets slightly angular, soon terete. 
Phyllodia obliquely obovate or oblong, obtuse or rarely inucronulate, to 1 inch, or in very 
luxuriant specimens twice as long, narrowed at the base, coriaceous, 1-nerved, penniveined, 
the marginal gland near the middle, small or often wanting. 
Peduncles rather short, solitary, or more frequently 2 to 5 on a very short common peduncle, 
often growing out into a leafy branch ; each bearing a globular head of numerous (20 to 50) 
flowers, mostly 5-merous. 
Sepals linear-spa thulate, free or connected by a thin membrane. 
Petals smooth, distinct or readily separating. 
Pod linear, straight or undulate, 3 to 5 lines broad, flat, but the valves often alternately convex 
and concave over the seeds and sometimes much warted. 
Seeds longitudinal, funicle thickened at the end into a club-shaped lateral aril and once folded 
below it. (B.Fi. ii, 373.) 
Varieties or Reputed Varieties. 
(1.) Var. glaucophylla Benth. Glaucous and more or less pubescent. Phyllodia 
mostly ^ to f inch long. Flower-heads mostly 2 to 5, shortly racemose, 
with about twenty to thirty flowers. (B.FI. ii, 374.) 
Bentham gives his own A. dictyocarpa as a synonym. Following is the 
original description : 
Acacia dictyocarpa, sp. n., glabra, p'ubescens, junior glaucesceus, ramis subteretibus, phyllodiis 
oblique obovato-oblongis obtusis v. vix mucronulatis tenuiter marginatis uninerviis basi angustatis infra 
medium plerumque glanduliferis, pedunculis solitariis v. brevissime racemosis phyllodia non superantibus, 
sepalis late spathulatis demum subliberis, legumine lineari reticulato-venoso. Phyllodia iis A. brachybotryte 
