123 
NO. 99. 
Acacia aulacocarpa, A. Cunn. 
A Brush Ironbark. 
(Family LEGUMINOS^E : MIMOSA.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Acacia. (See Part XV, p. 103.) 
Botanical description. —Species, aulacocarpa , A. Cunn., in Hooker’s London 
Journal of Botany, i, 378 (1842). 
Slightly hoary or ashy-glaucous, with a minute almost powdery down, which at length disappears ; 
branchlets angular. 
Phyllodia falcate-lanceolate, narrowed at both ends, 3 to 4 inches long, about \ inch broad, with 
a few slightly prominent nerves, the lower ones confluent with the lower margin at the basej 
and numerous smaller closely packed veins, rarely anastomosing. 
Spikes slender, loose, 1 to 2 inches long, tomentose-pubescent or glabrous. 
Flowers mostly 5-merous. 
Calyx with short broad lobes. 
Petals united below the middle. 
Pod falcate-oblong, flat but thick, obtusely recurved at the end, 1 to 2 inches long, \ to f inch 
broad, much narrowed at the base, hard, obliquely veined. 
Seeds obliquely transverse, not seen perfect. (B.F1. ii, 410.) 
Var. (1) macrocar pa, Benth. 
Pods 3-5 inches long, f to 1 inch broad, much undulate. Keppel Bay, Shoalwater Bay, and Broad 
Sound, R. Brown (B.F1. ii, 410). 
Botanical Name. — Acacia, already explained (see Part XV, p. 104) ; 
aulacocarpa, from two Greek words, aulax, aulakos, a furrow, in allusion to the 
grooving of the sutures of the pods, and carpos, a fruit. 
Vernacular Names. —“Brush Ironbark” is the principal name by which I 
know this tree. Only very few trees in Australia go under the name of Ironbark, 
that name being mainly reserved for certain Eucalypts. It has a very hard, durable 
timber which reminds some people of Ironbark. The tree usually grows in brushes 
or jungles. 
I have also heard it named “ Hickory,” a common name for the taller Acacias 
with falcate leaves (phyllodia). 
Aboriginal Name. —“ Dilka” of the Port Curtis blacks (Hedley). 
Fruits. —The pods are remarkable in appearance. Sometimes they are very 
wide. They are often twisted and veined. 
