1885.] EUCALTPTOGRAPHIA. 405 



EUCALYPTOGRAPHIA. 



FEED. VON MUELLER has inaugurated a practice, alas ! too 

 late, to save the lives of many similar explorers either into 

 new paths of geography or science. He has had the courage to stop 

 his great work on Australian Eucalypts with the tenth decade just 

 issued. Although from twenty to thirty species still remain to be 

 described, they are so widely scattered, and apparently so un- 

 important, that the author feels delay in the completion of the 

 present work to overtake their full diagnosis would only render it 

 antiquated ; so fast are facts and experiments of Eucalypt-growing 

 in the most widely-scattered countries accumulating, that a new 

 treatise will soon be imperative. 



Amongst the chief trees figured and described in this decade are 

 E. acmcnoidcs, " the White Mahogany " Eucalypt of New South 

 Wales ; E. caliophylla, a close companion in the forest with the 

 Jarrah ; E. cugcnioides, known in Queensland as the " White Stringy- 

 bark Tree," attaining a height of about 200 feet ; and E. i-cdunca, 

 " Wandoo " or principal " White Gum-tree " of West Australia, 

 yielding seasoned wood, weighing about 70 lbs. per cubic foot. 

 It also describes E. strida, found on the most elevated spots of the 

 Blue Mountains (3600 feet high), which is usually only 3 feet 

 high, though it is sometimes found as tall as 20 feet. 



Eucalypts should be felled about the close of the Australian 

 summer, as the flow of sap is then least active. Care must be taken 

 that the stems be not too severely shaken as they fall, if possible 

 towards underwood, and away from stony or rocky soil — otherwise 

 the value of the timber is deteriorated. This again should be sawn 

 up at once after felling. The density of the wood prevents its 

 being seasoned in ordinary fashion. Logs 3x2 inches should be 

 covered over with sawdust for three months ; those measuring 

 12 X 12 inches treated in the same way for twelve months; and 

 this will prove abundant seasoning. 



Mr. Brown has raised some thousands of Eucalypts by planting 

 seeds in hollow stems of bamboo, or of Arundo donax, in which earth 

 has been inserted, and which are afterwards placed vertically 

 together. Young seedlings should be the height of a hand's-breadth 

 when transplanted, the roots being dipped in a puddle of earth and 

 warm water, and partly left open. When sown in the open field, 

 the side is first turned over by the plougli, and a few seed grains 

 planted at spaces four or five feet apart. 



The purified Eucalyptus oil is not poisonous, and may be taken 

 internally. It remains for some days undecomposed in the human 



