COLLECTED BY CAPTAIN STURT. 327
Loc. In Hcrbavio D. Start specimen cxstat nulla sta- tionis ant loci indicationc, sed candem specieni ad fiindum sinus Spencer's Gulf dicti in sterilibus apricis anno 1802
Desc. Frutex qiiadripedalis, ramosissimus. Phyllodia semper aphylla, aversa, linearia, acuta, basi attenuata, plus minusve lalcato-incurva, biuncialia, I circitcr unciso lata cx- stipidata, paginis pube arctissime adpressa canescentibus, margine superiorc glandula unica depressa obsoleta. Floras flavi, in umbclla axillari 2-3 flora.
Obs. Cassia pliyllodinea is one of the very few species of the genus, which, like the far greater part of New Hol- land Acacise, lose their compound leaves, and are reduced to the footstalk, or phyllodium, as it is then called, and which generally becomes foliaceous by vertical compression [79 and dilatation. A manifest vertical compression takes place in this species of Cassia.
A second species. Cassia circinata of Benth. in ]\Iitch. trop. Austr. p. 884, is equally reduced to its footstalk, but which is without manifest vertical compression. To this species may ])erhaps be referred Cassia linearis of Cunning- ham MSS., discovered by him in 1817, but which a])pears to differ in having a single prominent gland about the middle of its phyllodium ; Bentham's plant being entirely eglandular.
These two, or possibly three species, belong to the desert tracts of the South Australian interior. In the same regions we have another tribe of Cassia) closely allied to the aphyllous species ; they have only one pair of foliola which are caducous, and whose persistent footstalk is more or less vertically compressed. Along with these, and nearly related to them, are found several species of Cassia, having from two to four or five pairs of foliola which are narrow, but their footstalks are without vertical compression, and their foliola are caducous, chiefly in those, however^ which have only two pairs.
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