A specimen of the botany of New Holland/Mimosa myrtifolia
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Hermaphrodite fl. Cal. five-toothed. Cor. five-cleft. Stam. 5 or more. Pist. 1. Fruit a pod.
Male, Cal. Cor. and Stam. like the hermaphr.
Leaves simple, elliptico-lanceolate, oblique, entire, cartilaginous in the margin. Heads of flowers in axillary racemi. Pods linear, with a thick edge.
Syn. Mimosa myrtifolia. Trans. of Linn. Soc. v. 1. 252.
THIS shrub is now not uncommon in our greenhouses, having been raised in plenty from seeds brought from Port Jackson. It generally bears its fragrant flowers late in the autumn, and might then at first sight be sooner taken for a Myrtus than a Mimosa.
It grows to a height of three or four feet, the branches alternate, upright, angular, with a very tough, smooth bark. Leaves of the young seedlings in pairs, pinnated; their leaflets oval: but when the stem rises, the common footstalks of its leaves become dilated, the leaflets cease to appear, and the whole shrub is ever after furnished with such dilated naked footstalks, which we beg permission to call leaves, because they undoubtedly to all intents and purposes are so; these are alternate, vertical, lanceolate, narrow at each extremity, tipped with a little sharp point, entire and cartilaginous in the margin, smooth, firm, glaucous. Stipulæ none. On their upper edge near the base is a small concave gland. Racemi axillary, solitary, erect, of about six alternate heads, each of three or four small white flowers, whose calyx has only four segments, and the corolla four petals. The stamina are very numerous. Germen roundish; style and stigma simple. Pod linear, pointed, zigzag, brown, with a very thick margin. Seeds about six, oblong.
EXPLANATION of TAB. XV.
1. A flower in front. 2. The same seen behind, magnified. 3. A stamen. 4. Germen, natural size and magnified. 5. Pod open, natural size. 6. A seed.