20 1 
No. 246. 
Acacia rigens A. Cunn. 
Needle-bush Wattle. 
(Family LEGUMINOS^E: MIMOSyE.) 
Introductory. Part XXX with Plate 114 has been devoted to the " Nealie, 
Acacia rigens," but further research has shown that the various plants there dealt with 
are not the true rigens. Additional material and further information has enabled me 
to say what these plants are,- viz. : New species, Acacia cana Maiden (erroneously 
eremea in the text), and A. Loderi Maiden, both described in Journ. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., 
vol. liii, pages 206 and 209 respectively. I am now in a position to say what A . rigens 
really is. 
Botanical description.- Genus, Acacia. See Part XV, p. 103. 
Botanical description. Species, rigens A. Cunn. (MSS. in Loud. Hort. Brit. p. 406. 
This is not a complete description, being little more than a note that it is a 
" stiff " Acacia, and that it was introduced into England in 1824). 
The first description is as follows : 
Stipultu almost wanting or deciduous; phyllodia filiform, compressed, ending in an oblique, callous 
mucroue at the apex, 3-nerved at the base, and furnished with a gland-bearing tooth on the upper-margin 
at the base ; branches straight, angular, pubescent ; heads axillary, solitary ; peduncles clothed with ruf ous 
Bcalea, much shorter than the phyllodia. Native of New Holland. PhyUodia 3-4 inches long. (G. Don, 
"0n. Hist. Dichlamydeous Plants," ii, 403, 1832.) 
The following description (a traaslation herewith) is the first occasion in which 
a definite locality is quoted : 
A. rigent (Cunn. in 0. Don, Gard. Did. ii, 404). When young puborulous, finally glabrous, 
branchleta angular, phyilodes erect-spreading, linear-subulate, terete-compressed rigid, awnless, indistinctly 
mucronate and about 3-nerved on each side, peduncles solitary or double, much shorter than the phyllode, 
heads many-flowered, calyx sinuate dentate. Phyllodes mostly 2-2$ inches long. Peduncles short, rigid. 
Pod narrow linear (1J lines broad) twisted, slightly contracted between the seeds, puberulouR, valves 
membranous-coriaceous. Lachlan River, Campbell's Cataract, interior of New South Wales, Cunningham. 
Thu species connect* the Calamiformes with A. elongate var. (?) humilis. Phyllodes rather compressed, 
and scarcely exceeding an inch in length. South-west interior of New South Wales, Fraser. (Bentliam 
in Hook. land. Journ. Bot. i. 342,1842.) 
