39 
No. 121. 
Acacia excelsa, Benth. 
Iron wood. 
(Family LEGUMINOS^E : MIMOSE^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Acacia. (See Part XV, p. 103.) 
Botanical description. —Species, A. excelsa, Benth. in. Mitch. Trop. Austral., 225. 
A large forest tree, branchlets slender, terete or nearly so, glabrous or rarely minutely pubescent. 
Phyllodia. —Oblong-falcate, rather obtuse or mucronulate, narrowed at the base, 2 to 3 inches 
long, \ to | inch broad, thinly coriaceous, with 5 to 7 nerves, and smooth or faintly veined 
between them. 
Peduncles. —Solitary, in pairs or clusters, sometimes not 2 lines, in other specimens nearly ^ inch 
long, bearing each a globular head of numerous (20 to 30) flowers, mostly 5-merous. 
Sepals. — Distinct. 
Petals. — Smooth. 
Pod. —Straight, flat, about 3 lines broad, thinly coriaceous, the sutures narrow-edged or almost 
winged, not usually dehiscent but hardening over the seeds and readily breaking off 
between them. 
Seeds.— Ovate, longitudinal; funicle short and filiform, n-ither folded nor enlarged. (B.F1. ii, 390.) 
Mr. R. H. Cambage writes concerning this tree: — 
Mature trees have a clean trunk and drooping foliage, but the young trees are covered with branches 
on the trunk. A curious feature of many interior trees is the protection afforded by spreading growth and 
numerous branches in young stages as compared with that of after years. Several species have this 
peculiarity, among others being Acacia excelsa, Grevillea striata, Capparis Mitchelli, and, perhaps most of 
all, Flindersia maculosa, F.v.M.—( Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. W.' (1900), 594.) 
For a note on this protective character and photographs, see Part X, p. 212. 
See also Part XX, p. 201, and see Part XXX, p. 165. 
The tree sprouts again after the stem is cut (Mueller). 
Botanical Name. — Acacia, already explained (see Part XV, p. 104); excelsa, 
Latin, “ tall,” the tree being one of the largest of the wattles. 
Vernacular Names. —Its widely employed name is “ Ironwood,” from the 
hardness of the wood, which is brittle and inclined to splinter. 
W. Hill in the Catalogue of the specimens of woods (No. 117), sent from 
Queensland to the London Exhibition of 1862, calls this timber Rosewood. 
Aboriginal Names. —“Doodlallie” of the aborigines of the Nyngan 
District, N.S.W. (E. F. Rogers). “Bunkerman” of those of the Cloncurry 
River, Queensland (E. Palmer). 
