71 
Polio wing is Cunningham’s description :— 
“A. astringens (Cunningham MSS.) phyllodia glaucescent, broad, obliquely ovate-oblong, obtuse, 
somewhat arcuate and marginated, feather-nerved, smooth, furnished with one gland on the upper margin 
at the base; heads of flowers racemose. H. G. Native of New South Wales. Phyllodia, 3-4 inches long 
and 1 inch broad.” 
Astringent Acacia. Shrub, 6-10 feet.— (Hist. Gard. and Hot., Don, vol. 2, p. 405). 
Mr. IX. T. Baker has re-described this as a variety glauca of A. penninervis 
in the following words :— 
“ A shrub of a few feet in height, branchlets red, terete, much stouter than in other varieties. 
Phyllodes broadly obtuse, glaucous, coriaceous, central nerve and margins very prominent, the gland rarely 
present, 3 to 5 inches long, 1 to 2 inches broad. Pod thickly coriaceous, 2 to 4 inches long, under 
1 inch broad. Seed mostly orbicular.”—(“ Botany of Rylstone and Goulburn River Districts.”— Proc. Linn. 
Soc. N.S.W., xxi [1896], p. 441.) 
Bentliam (B.F1. ii, 362) founded a variety falciformis of A. penninervis. 
Following are his words :— 
“ Yar. falciformis. 
Phyllodia usually longer and more falcate, young shoots and inflorescence minutely hoary or golden- 
pubescent. 
Pod nearly f inch broad. 
A. falciformis , DC. Prod, ii, 452 ; A. astringens, A. Cunn. in G. Don. Gen. Syst. ii, 405. 
From Twofold Bay (F. Mueller), to Moreton Bay (Leichhardt), and New England (C. Stuart) • 
and from the Blue Mountains (Sieber, n. 616, and others) to the Lachlan River (A. Cunningham, Fraser). 
Called Blackwood by the western colonists, and the bark used for tanning.” 
This form has broad, coarse phyllodes, is commonly a big tree, is a well-known 
Tanning Wattle, and is commonly called Hickory or Mountain Hickory. 
It is the tree described as follows by Mr. IX. T. Baker as A. penninervis, 
var. normalis, a view I shared until receipt of the types from Ivew :— 
Var. normalis. Phyllodia lanceolate-falcate, obtuse or acuminate, thinly coriaceous, 3 to 5 inches 
long and 1 inch broad, 1-nerved and prominently penninerved, the margins nerve-like, and almost always 
with a short secondary nerve terminating in a gland a short distance from the base. Pod several inches 
long and 1 in. broad, firm, margins parallel, often glaucous. A tree up to 60 or 70 feet high. It is the 
bark of this tree that is highly prized for tanning.”—(“Botany of Rylstone and Goulburn River Districts.”— 
Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xxi [1896], p. 441.) 
Then we have a narrow-leaved form, which I described as follows at p. 49 of 
my “Wattles and Wattle-barks,” 3rd Edition, 1906:— 
“ Var. angustifolia, Maiden. A long narrow-phyllode form, found only on the South Coast, so far 
as I know. Phyllodes commonly 6 inches long and under half an inch wide, straight or slightly falcate. 
The pods are narrower than in the normal form. The young shoots and the rhachises of the inflorescence 
are sometimes densely covered with golden yellow hairs.” 
Botanical Name.— Acacia, already explained (see Part XY, p. 104) ; 
penninervis, from two Latin words, penna, a feather; nervus, a nerve, or, in botany, 
“a vein.” So that penninerved means that the phyllodes (“leaves”) have their 
venation arranged after the fashion of a pinnae of a feather. 
Vernacular Names. — Usually called “ Hickory,” or “ Mountain Hickory.” 
Occasionally called “Black Wattle,” e.g., Blue Mountains. 
