A specimen of the botany of New Holland/Mimosa hispidula

by James Edward Smith

MIMOSA hispidula.

Little harsh Mimosa.

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Spec. Char. M. foliis simplicibus ellipticis obliquis utrinque margineque scabris, ramulis hispido-pubescentibus, capitulis solitariis.

Leaves simple, elliptical, oblique, rough on each side and at the margin. Young branches clothed with short harsh down. Heads of flowers solitary.

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A more extraordinary Mimosa that even the preceding. We know no other species that has so much asperity about it; certainly every other simple-leaved one yet discovered is perfectly smooth. It has not appeared in the gardens, nor were any specimens sent till last year.

It seems to form a thick rigid bush, the branches numerous, alternate, spreading, round, very rough with a short, dense, rigid pubescence, especially when young. Leaves alternate, apparently vertical, sessile, elliptical, oblique, pointed, entire, extremely harsh with minute, prominent, scattered points, especially on the rib and the cartilaginous margin, so that they might be called denticulate. Stipulæ in pairs, very minute, triangular, membranous. Flowers pale yellow, many together in little round heads, which stand solitary, on rough axillary flower-stalks shorter than the leaves, destitute of bracteæ. Calyx in four segments, ciliated. Petals four, concave. Pod compressed, broadish in proportion to its length.

EXPLANATION of TAB. XVI.

1. Back of a magnified flower. 2. A stamen. 3, 3, Two pods, copied from a drawing done at Port Jackson. 4. A stipula magnified.