251 
No. 252. 
- Acacia cana Maiden. 
Broad-leaved Nealie. 
(Family LEGUMINOSyE : MIMOSyE.) 
Botanical description. Genus Acacia. See Part XV, p. 103. 
Botanical description. Species cana Maiden, in Journ. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., LIII, 
206 (1919). (A. eremea in the text in error.) 
Following is the original description : 
An erect shrub or small tree with beautiful silvery foliage, the result of a very short tomentum, 
branchlets at first slightly angular. 
Phyllodia straight, or slightly falcate, lanceolate, narrow, tapering to both ends, with'a rigid point, 
5-7 cm. long, 4 mm. broad, thick, very finely atriate with parallel nerves only to be seen under a lens. 
An ill-defined gland at the base. 
Peduncles in pairs or more, covered with golden hairs and about 5 mm. long, bearing globular heads 
of about thirty flowers, mostly 5-merous. Bracts conoid capitate. 
Sepals spathulate, besprinkled with hairs, particularly towards the top, scarcely half as long as the 
corolla. Petals hairy all over, and ciliate at the edges, free. Ovary hirsute. 
Pod of medium width, twisted (?), covered with a very short tomentum and very finely and 
reticulately veined, about 1 dm. long and 6 mm. broad, the valves moderately convex over the seeds, which 
are slightly contracted between them; seeds longitudinally arranged. 
Affinities. As this Wattle was confused by the late Baron von Mueller with 
the Yarran (Acacia homalophylla A. Cunn.) it may be useful to say that A . homalopliylla 
is a medium-sized, erect tree. The phyllodia present considerable external resemblance, 
except that those of A . homalophylla are not silvery. The sepals of that species are 
truncate-undulate, not spathulate. while the pods (see Plate 189, fig. E of Part L) are 
straight, not twisted, and not reticulately veined as m 4, ca a. 
