200 
funicle is almost colourless, and stretching only to the lower portion of the seed, there forming an arillar 
fold. Moreover, in A. gJaticescens the phyllodes are less destitute of hairlets an original specimen of 
Sieber's A. cinerascens, available here to me, being very instructive in this respect, and so an authentic 
specimen of Wendland's A. homomaUa; further, the calyx is more decidedly velutinous, and the corolla, 
is usually five-lobed, not like that of A. longifolia and its allies four-cleft ; but how far this note holds good, 
requires yetfu rther to be ascertained. Already De Candolle.and later Hooker.seized on this characteristic, 
when briefly defining A. cinerascens of Sieber, which may have possible other distinctions between that 
supposed species and A. glaucescens. Sprengel, who one year later than De Candolle promulgated A. 
cineratcens by a diagnosis too brief, lays also stress on the characteristic of grey-velutinous branchlets, 
which does not apply to A. Maidenii ; it is, therefore, unlikely that Mr. Maiden's plant should be connected 
by intermediate forms with A. cinerascens, which authentically was not gathered in fruit. Contrarily, 
Bentham seems to have been quite right in combining it with A. glaucescens, of which Mr. A. R. Crawford 
says, that the phyllodes of young plants are roundish. A. leucadendron, reduced by Bentham to A. 
glaucescens, represents perhaps also the form cinerascens, as in Hooker's Lond. Journ. I, 374, the spikes 
are called, probably by a mere writing error, semi-pollicares, instead of sesqui-pollicares (when fully 
developed) ; this can only be cleared up from Cunningham's collections. 
" Furthermore, it should be remarked, as pointed out by Mr. Maiden, that A. glaucescens is in the 
lowlands of New South Wales a southern species, while A. Maidenii is a northern, from regions not accessible 
to Sieber during his only seven months' Australian 'collecting visit to Port Jackson and its vicinity from 
June, 1822, to January, 1823. (At the time, 1893, we only knew it from northern localities. J.H.M.) 
Here it may be of further interest to state, that a letter from Sieber appeared in the Ratisbon bot. Zeitung 
' Flora ' of 1824, at pp. 250-256 and following, in which communication he. speaks of the marvellous forms 
of Australian Actcias, specimens of about 150 species being shown him there and then by Allan Cunningham 
(F. C. Dietrich in Eichler's Jahrbuch, 1881, p. 287). But as yet the fruit of A. cinerascens remains unknown, 
to confirm absolutely the specific identity of that plant with A. glaucescens. The preponderance of four- 
or five-cleft corollas can best be ascertained by examining great, masses of flowers on living plants at their 
indigenous places. The localities, annotated under A. glaucescens in the Flora Australiensis, II, 406 407, 
for northern New South Wales and for Queensland, belong probably all to A. Maidenii; indeed, the most 
northern station for A. glaucescens, with certainty represented in the Melbourne Herbarium, is on the 
eastern slopes of New England at the Apsley River (A. R. Crawford), therefore in a cool region ; while its 
southern limit is at the Genoa on mountains (Baeuerlen). The very flexuous fruit (not correct J.H.M.) 
of A. Maidenii resembles that of A. implexa, but the arillar funicle in that species are much like those of 
A. glaucescens, therefore basal only to the seeds." (Mueller, op. tit.). 
Acacia glaucescens is figured at Plate 145 (Part XXXVIII) of the present work, 
and it would be well to compare the two plates. A. glaucescens has glaucous foliage, 
as its name denotes, and its inflorescence is very abundant and showy, that of A. Maidenii 
being less floriferous and less yellow. The pods of A. glaucescens are straight and 
tomentose, those of A. Maidenii are glabrous and twisted. The funicles are different. 
The timber of A. glaucescens is denser and darker. 
2. With A. Cunning hamii Hook. 
" A. Cunninghami comes very near to A. Maidenii, particularly also in the venulation of the phyllodes, 
though the main venules are more prominent ; but the branchlets are very angular and more robust, the 
phyllodes more inequilateral and thus indicate an approach to those of the Dimidiatae, the calyces are 
nearly glabrous, the corollas are usually five-cleft, necessitating a five-denticulate calyx also, the fruits 
are still less broad, the seeds distinctly narrower but quite as long, the arillar appendage extends only to 
the basal part of the seed, and forms there a thick appendage from almost consolidated foldings of the 
funicle. 
" A. Cunninghamiiia evidently a more frequent species than A. Maidenii ; thus it occurs in the 
distributed collections of Madame Dietrich from PortMackay, Lake Elphinstone, and Rockhampton under 
the following numbers, so far as can be judged from flowering samples, all her specimens being devoid of 
fruit : 264, 381, 486, 539, 553, 622, 851, 1651, 2502, 2539. The following localities are also additional 
