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Botanical Name.— Acacia, already explained (see Part XV, p. 104); 
decora, from the Latin decor, handsome, sightly, graceful. 
Vernacular Names. —Over a large area of country this is called “ Silver 
Wattle,” because of the silvery appearance of the foliage. I have also heard it 
called “ Golden Wattle,” because of the profusion of its bright yellow flowers, and 
certainly no Wattle deserves the name better. 
Aboriginal Name. —Mr. Robert Kidston, when Porest Ranger, gave me 
“ Baringa ” as the aboriginal name for this plant in the Lachlan district. 
Leaves (Phyllodes).—Acacia decora has a wide geographical range, and 
includes a certain amount of variety, particularly in the phyllodes. I accordingly 
endeavoured to see if there are forms sufficiently accentuated to be called varieties, 
but failed. Some are less spathulate in shape than the type. Many of the 
phyllodes have one gland, and others have two glands; but these have no diagnostic 
value, for the same tree often has uniglandular and biglanaular phyllodes. Nor can 
I find that the differences of length and width of the phyllodes have any classificatory 
value. The plate may be referred to. 
This Wattle is occasionally used for fodder, but certainly not to any great 
extent. 
Timber. —Reddish-brown in colour, not very hard; splits fairly well, and 
displays a small and neat silver grain. It is excellent for fuel, but the shortness of 
its trunk precludes its extensive use in the arts. 
Ornamental Tree. —This tree is well named decora, for it is most beautiful. 
To see it on the western plains in August or September, forming veritable balloons 
of gold, is to witness a truly Australian spectacle which no lover of nature can see 
unmoved. Australia is a country of interesting plants ; hut I know nothing more 
gorgeous, more sweet, more pure, than the countryside ablaze with plants of this 
species at their best. The clear country air, and the more sombre appearance of 
the rest of most of the vegetation in winter, or in early spring, combine to enhance 
the brilliance of this Wattle. 
It is quite true that we have some pretty Wattles in the Coast districts, but 
the Wattle is only developed in its fullest beauty in the interior, the tablelands or 
the western plains. Its profusion, also, is inexhaustible ; and abundant evidence is 
available as to the approjmateness of the Wattle as a national floral emblem for 
Australia. 
Habitat.— Reichenbach described his species from a cultivated plant, and 
does not say where he got his seeds from. 
Bentliam (Hooker’s London Journal of Botany, i, 358, 1812) gives the 
locality of this species as “Liverpool Plains, New South Wales, Cunningham, 
Fraser .” The seeds which produced the type, therefore, probably came from the 
Liverpool Plains. 
