24 
No. 117. 
Acacia Cambagei, R. T. Baker. 
The Gidgee. 
(Family LEGUMINOS^E : MIMOSE^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Acacia. (See Part XV, p. 103.) 
Botanical description. —Species, A. Cambagei , R. T. Baker in Proc. Linn. Soc. 
N.S. W ., 1900, p. 661-2, with a plate (42). 
A medium-sized tree, with pendulous* branchlets, the foliage of a pale or glaucous hue ; branchlet 
angular. 
Pliyllodia falcate, lanceolate, obtuse or slightly acuminate, up to 5 inches long, and from 5 to 
9 lines broad, with numerous fine parallel veins, two or three more prominent than the rest : 
thin or membranous. 
Peduncles about 3 lines long, slender, in axillary clusters of about 6, each bearing a globular head 
of about 12 flowers. 
Sepals broad, spathulate, ciliate on the upper edge, free and less than half as long as the petals. 
Petals glabrous. 
Pod fiat, straight, about 3 inches (lines in original) long and 4 lines broad, veined, valves thin, not 
contracted between the seeds. 
Seeds ovate, longitudinal, or slightly oblique; funicle short, filiform, not folded nor dilated. 
It differs in herbarium material from “ Yarran ” (A homalophylla), in its larger and glaucous 
phyllodes, and the distinct venation, and also in the shape of its pods, and in the shape of the funicle. 
The phyllodes are somewhat similar to those of A. excel sa, Benth., in venation and colour, as also in the 
timber and pod. In botanical sequence it is placed between that species and A. harpophylla , F.v.M. 
It has been usual in the past to regard in herbaria this tree (“Gidgee”) and “Yarran” as one and 
the same species, and in the botanical literature of the Acacias they are designated as A. homalophylla, 
A. Cunn. It would appear, however, in the field that the “ Gidgee’’and “Yarran” are never confounded 
by settlers, the two trees, as they remark, “ being quite different.” 
Mr. R. H. Cambage, L.S., who has given recent attention to these particular trees, and who has 
repeatedly disputed their being specifically the same, has procured sufficient material and evidence to 
convince me that the two should be separated ; and I now propose the name of A. Camhagei for the wattle 
known over a large tract of the interior of New South Wales as “Gidgee.” 
Bentham’s description of A. homalophylla, A. Cunn. (B FI. ii, 383), and Mueller’s figure ( Iconography 
of Acacias) of that species undoubtedly i-efer to “ Yarran,” which I have myself collected in several parts 
of this colony. The two species can be easily separated in dried specimens, the phyllodes being quite 
dissimilar, as well as the pods, funicle, and timber. 
In the field, “ Gidgee” is separated from “ Yarran ” by the offensive odour of its pliyllodia, which in 
wet weather is particularly disagreeable, and can be detected when one is miles away from the trees. 
(Op. cit.) 
Not really pendulous. See the photograph. 
