My interest in acacias really started about 1960 when I was studying the formation and metabolism of cyanogenic compounds—compounds that release hydrogen cyanide when a plant’s cellular structure is disrupted, e.g. when eaten by animals. When I learned that acacias are cyanogenic, I approached Roman Gankin, the Arboretum superintendent, and asked him to consider increasing the acacia collection. Roman was very accommodating.

Ryan Deering is now keeping an eye on the acacia collection. He even has a few seedlings of Acacia conniana that he hopes will be hardy enough to withstand our occasional winter temperatures in the low 20s.

Here’s how the name came about: In Australia, there were two species of Acacia cognata that had the same name, one in New South Wales and one in Western Australia. I had shown that both species were cyanogenic and wanted to publish this information in a paper on Australian cyanogenic acacia species. Imagine my surprise when my friend Bruce Maslin, the authority on Western Australian acacias, sent me a paper in which he renamed the western species Acacia conniana after me.