91 
No. 133. 
Acacia Cunninghamii, Hook. 
The “Bastard Myall” or “Kurracabah.” 
(Family LEGUMINOSvE : MIMOSE^l.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Acacia. (See Part XV, p. 103.) 
Botanical description. —Species, A. Cunninghamii, Hook., t. 165 (1837). 
Hooker originally described it in the following words :— 
Branches acutely three-angled, phyllode (as broad as a hand, excluding the thumb (sic), broadly 
lanceolate falcate, attenuate at the base and apex, with parallel veins, scurfy, with a single gland near the 
base, the flowering spikes elongated and vermiform, sessile in the axils, and shorter than the phyllodes, 
flowers pentamerous. (Translation). 
A tree, 10-15 feet high, with very large falcated phyllodia, clothed, more especially in the young 
state and on the young branches, with a mealy substance which in older plants is deciduous. The spikes 
are generally two together in the axils of the leaves, sessile, flexuose. Between the parallel nerves are 
lesser oblique and often anastomosing ones. 
Bentkam then described it as follows:— 
A shrub or small tree of 10 to 20 feet; glabrous or hoary-pubescent; branchlets acutely three¬ 
angled. 
Phyllodia falcate-oblong or lanceolate, narrowed at both ends, mostly 5 to 6 inches long and 1 to 
1£ inches broad, or larger on barren shoots, with numerous parallel veins, 3 to 5 more pro¬ 
minent than the others, and 1 or 2 confluent with the lower margin near the very oblique base. 
Spikes 1| to 3 inches long. 
Flowers mostly 5-merous; often distinct or distant. 
Calyx short, truncate or sinuate-toothed, usually glabrous. 
Petals smooth. 
Pod long, linear, very flexuose or twisted, 1 to 2 lines broad; valves coriaceous, convex. 
Seeds longitudinal, but not seen ripe. (B. FI. II, 407.) . 
Bentham ( loc. cit.) describes a var. longispicata ;—“ Branches stout, and still 
more angular. Phyllodia 6-8 inches long, 1-2 inches broad.” 
Specimens from Mount Dangar, Murrumbo, the Upper Hunter, and some of 
those from the Evans River, are all coarser and more angular than the type, but the 
spikes are barely even 3 inches long. 
It seems to me an inconvenient variety, the attempted maintenance of which 
will only lead to confusion. 
