10 
2. A. cibaria F.v.M. 
Mueller and Forrest ("Plants indigenous around Shark's Bay, W.A." 1883), 
speaking of the then recently described A. cibaria F.v.M., say that the native name is 
" Wonuy " and that the aborigines use the seeds for food. Some Shark's Bay seeds 
that I received from Mueller at the time, I described as " two or three times as largo 
as most Acacia seeds (resembling small castor oil seeds somewhat) and with excessively 
hard and very thick coats." I am satisfied that they do not answer to the main 
description of A. cibaria seed, although they gave the name to the species. 
Tatc in Proc. Roy. Soc. S.A., v. 85 (1882), says that "this species includes 
A. aneura var. stenocarpa. He adds that it may be identical with A. brachyslachya 
Benth., inasmuch as flowering specimens of A. aneura and A. brachystachya cannot 
readily be distinguished, and both species occur in the same region ; the length of the 
spike is variable. Under these circumstances it seems advisable to abolish the latter 
specific name." 
Ewart and White (Proc. Roy. Soc. Viet., xxii, 92) state that " . . . A. 
cibaria F.v.M. appears close to A. brachystachya, and was in fact, marked by Mueller, 
' Forsan A. brachystachya.' ' 
I find that the original description of A. cibaria is so little known, and it is so 
important, that I quote it here, with comments of my own in brackets. 
" Branchlets not angular, slightly silky ; phyllodes rather long, thick, rigid, broadly linear, very 
finely many-nerved, of greyish hue, curved apiculated; stipules and gland obliterated." (Applies to 
both A. ramulosa and A. brachystachya.) 
"Spikes axillary, solitary, short -stalked, not elongated; flowers slightly short-hairy, bracts 
rhomboid towards the summit, very thin towards the base, surpassed in length by the flowers ; sepals 
narrow, free, hardly half as long as the unstreaked corolla" (A. brachystachya); "pods straight, 
cylindrical, longitudinally streaked ; seeds placed likewise, oblong, their two areoles minute ; strophiole 
very short, cupular, occupying only the basal portion of the seed ; funicle closely twisted beneath the 
strophiole." (A. ramulosa.) 
" Between the Darling River and Barcoo, Dr. Bcckler." (A. brackystachya). 
' Near the Murchison River, Ch. Gray, near the Gascoyne River, Oliver Jonas." (A. ramulosa.) 
'A tall shrub or small tree allied to A. aneura in foliage, but very different as regards fruit." 
(A. ramulosa and A. brachystachya.) 
" The aborigines use the seeds very largely for food, wherever this sp:ciefl occurs." (A. sp.) 
The fruits mar Shark Bay are much larger and the seeds brownish, not black. It is the ' Wonuy ' 
of the natives." (A. sp., whose identity can only be guessed at.) 
So that the description of A. cibaria is a mixture of A. ramulosa, A. 
brachystachya and A. sp. It had better be dropped. 
Botanical Name.- Acacia, already explained (see Part XV, p. 104); 
brachystachya, from the Greek brachus short; stachus, an ear of corn, equivalent to the 
,tm spica. In the present case it refers to the flower-spike, and it was suggested by 
Bentham that it might be a short spiked variety of A. aneura, 
