206 
No. 36. 
Albizzia pruinosa, F.v.M. 
A Stinkwood. 
(Natural Order LEGUMINOS^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Albizzia, Durazz. 
Calyx. —Campanulate or tubular, 5- or rarely 4-toothed. 
Corolla. —5- or rarely 4-lobed, with a cylindrical tube. 
Stamens. —Indefinite, usually numerous and long, united at the base in a tube enclosing the ovary. 
Pod. —Linear or oblong, straight or nearly so, fiat, thin, rarely coriaceous, indehiscent or opening 
without elasticity in 2 valves. 
Seed. —Usually orbicular, along the centre of the pod; funicle filiform. 
Ti •ees or shrubs, without prickles. 
Leaves. —Twice pinnate, with a gland on the petiole below the pinnae, and others between or 
below some or all of the pinnae and leaflets. 
Flowers. —In globular heads or rarely cylindrical spikes, usually hermaphrodite. 
Stamens. —White or pink, rarely yellow, much longer than in Acacia. —(B.F1. ii, 421). 
Bentkam (B.F1. ii, 422) places this tree under Pithecolobium. I follow 
Mueller in placing it under Albizzia. See an important paper by the latter * where 
it seems fully proved that the Australian species come under Albizzia. Whether or 
no, the South American species with fleshy pods, hence eaten by apes and monkeys, 
should be placed under Pithecolobium (Greek pithes an ape). 
Bentham distinguishes between the two genera as follows ;— 
Pod flat and thin, straight or scarcely falcate. — Albizzia. 
Pod curved or twisted, 2-valved, and often reddish or pulpy inside, or separating into indehiscent 
articles.— Pithecolobium. 
and his reasons in favour of separating the two genera, as given in B.F1. ii, 421, 
should he perused. 
Botanical description. —Species, A. pruinosum, F.v.M., in Journ. Pot. x, 9. 
A beautiful tree, the young branches, foliage, and inflorescence rusty with a short pubescence, or 
glabrous. 
*“The genus Albizzia; its origin and systematic limits considered.”— Journ. Hot. x, 7 (1872). 
