131 
Affinities. —Bentham (B.F1. ii, 3GG) says : “ Allied on the one hand to 
A. amoena\ on the other to A. gladiiformis, hut apparently distinct from both.” I 
will discuss this statement after having figured the two species referred to. 
The flowers of A. obtusata are practically the same as those of A. rubida, and 
the phyllodes of the two species present more similarity than is apparent at first 
sight. The funicles of the seeds are, however, very different. 
I will also discuss its affinities to A. Dorothea, Maiden, when I figure that 
species. 
Vernacular Name. —It will he seen that Don proposed the name 
“ Blunted-leaved Acacia ” for this species, but this character does not always obtain 
in the species, while to many others it is as appropriate, or even more so. I 
therefore cannot recommend its adoption ; at the same time I cannot suggest a 
satisfactory vernacular name. 
Leaves. —Mr. B. T. Baker has figured the species in Droc. Linn. Soc. 
N.S. Wcdes, xxii, 694, and he informs me that the twig figured by him was 
collected at Barber’s Creek. 
His twig shows phyllodes with acuminate points or mucrones, which I have 
not seen in any specimens of Sieber’s type, hut such phyllodes commonly occur in 
the species. The marginal vein is often very prominent. 
Size. —A shrub of 3 to 6 feet. 
Habitat. —Sieber’s type is his “FI. Novae. Holl., No. 441.” We know that 
he went to the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, on at least one trip, but many 
of his specimens were collected in the vicinity of Port Jackson, and southward on 
his trip to “ Argyle County.” 
Allan Cunningham showed him 150 species of Acacia, and we know this 
botanist was generous to visiting botanists (e.g., to those of the French Expeditions 
and a Russian one), so it is quite possible that he received some of his Acacias 
from that source. 
No New South Wales specimen of Sieber bore a locality label, so that the 
collecting grounds are sometimes a matter of surmise. 
O o 
That Sieber collected his No. 441 on the Blue Mountains, as stated by 
Bentham (B.F1. ii, 366), is probable, although I can only precisely match it, at 
present, from the Southern Tableland. The road across the Blue Mountains had 
been opened by Governor Macquarie in 1815. 
In 1889 I collected a specimen at Mount Victoria in early fruit, which almost 
undoubtedly belongs to this species. I may have got it in the Kanimhla Valley 
adjacent. I do not know of another indubitable Blue Mountain specimen,* so that 
the species is rare in the Blue Mountains, so far as our knowledge goes at present. 
• Since the above was in type, I have received from the Director of Kew a phyllode of Acacia obtusata, labelled 
“ A. Cunningham, Blue Mountains.” It matches my Mount Victoria specimen precisely. We require further search for 
the species on the Blue Mountains. No specimen of this species collected by Fraser in the Blue Mountains is in the Kew 
Herbarium. 
99341—B 
