BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 497 
year, furnishes a copious supply of a cool refreshing liquid, 
called cider by the stock-keepers. This circumstance has 
given rise to the apellation of “ Cider tree," a name for 
several years known to naturalists, who were, however, till 
very recently, ignorant of the real nature of the tree in 
question. 
The first particular notice of it which, as far as I am 
aware, ever appeared in print, is contained in Ross's Hobart 
Town Almanack for the year 1835, where, in a list of the 
native plants chiefly drawn up by Mr. Backhouse, the Cider- 
tree is mentioned as a species of Eucalyptus growing in the 
higher parts of the Island, and on the tops of mountains. In 
Mr. Backhouse's valuable botanical notes on the Vegetation 
9f Australia and Tasmania, that gentleman mentions it as 
not having been seen by him, and as producing a liquor 
resembling black beer, obtained by boring thetrunk. Lieut. 
Breton, in his “Notes of an Excursion in Tasmania,” 
printed in the Tasmanian Journal, at v. 2, p. 140, more par- 
ticularly notices this tree, and the method employed for 
collecting the sap. He says, “The shepherds and stock- 
keepers are in the habit of making deep incisions in the 
bark, wherever an exudation of the sap is perceived upon 
the bark, The holes are made in such a manner as to retain 
the sap which flows into them, and large enough to hold a 
pint. Each tree yields from half a pint to a pint daily, 
during December and J anuary ; but the quantity lessens in 
ry, and soon after ceases. The cider or sap of the 
tree has an agreeable subacid taste, and sometimes is of con- 
siderable consistency. It is said to have an aperient effect 
upon those who drink much of it.” 
During the stay of the Antarctic Expedition in Hobart 
own, Mr. Gunn showed me small specimens of the tree, 
Procured from a friend up the country, which, though imper- 
fect, evidently belonged to a new species of Eucalyptus. 
ing anxious myself to see, in its native habitat, a plant 
which is considered of no little importance in a colony where 
almost none of the vegetable productions afford either food 
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