THE AUSTRALIAN FEVER-TREE. 34.5 



Eucalyptus, which includes upward of 150 species, holds the first place 

 among these exotic plants. The Eucalypti belong to the natural order 

 Myrtace<je, and are indigenous almost exclusively to Australia and 

 Tasmania. They are distinguished for a high development of the 

 phenomenon known as heteromorphism the same plant assuming a 

 perfectly different habit at diflerent stages of its growth. The species 

 with which we are just now concerned, the Eucalyptus globulus, pre- 

 sents two very distinct forms : when the plant is young, the leathery 

 leaves are opposite and sessile ; this is a sort of larval state the plant 

 is not yet mature, and cannot produce flowers. But in the adult state 

 the leaves are pedunculate and alternate, and then the plant flowers 

 and bears fruit. This polymorphism, however, does not occur to the 

 same extent in all species of the Eucalyptus, and it is almost alto- 

 gether wanting in E. cordata. 



The honor of having discovered the Eucalyptus globulus belongs 

 to a French scientist, Labillardiere, the botanist, who accompanied 

 the Chevalier d'Entrecasteaux on his expedition in the year 1791, to 

 search for the lost crew of La Perouse. Labillardiere's journal of 

 May 12, 1792, at which date the expedition was in the Buy of Storms, 

 Van Diemeu's Land, indicates that even then this sagacious botanist 

 anticipated the great value of this tree for ship-building purposes. 



For a long time the EucalypMis globulus was simply an object of 

 curiosity, and many a botanic garden possessed it without any one 

 knowing of the fact: thus M. Planchon assures us that he saw it in 

 1854 in the Paris Museum, under the name of ^. glauca. In Tasma- 

 nia the colonists well knew the value of their splendid blue-gum tree, 

 and employed it for a thousand purposes. It became more generally 

 difi'used only after the colony of Victoria was founded, an event not 

 yet forty years old. Two names are thenceforth specially connected 

 with the history of the Eucalyptus, viz., those of Baron Ferdinand 

 Miiller, of Melbourne, the distinguished botanist, and of M. Ramel. 

 From the Botanic Garden at Melbourne the Eucalyptus crossed the 

 sea to Europe, Africa, and America, like many other plants from the 

 same source which have been acclimated in foreign lands. 



Justly, as we think, M. Planchon observes that the term acclima- 

 tion is apt to suggest erroneous notions, and that it is based upon a 

 profound misconception of the true nature of plants their tempera- 

 ment, so to say. Plants are imported and become naturalized, if you 

 please ; but this adaptation in all cases takes place very slowly, grad- 

 ually, by selection of individuals from successive generations, by the 

 production of races or local varieties which experience shows to be 

 the best fitted to adapt themselves to the special conditions of climate 

 and environment in which they exist. Though there are many grades 

 of naturalization, they can all be reduced to two categories, viz., that 

 of plants which accompany man and domestic animals, and which 

 never separate from them; and, secondly, those plants which, in order 



