634 president's address. 



This does not quite agree with my own observations. 



Both in the " Eucalyptographia " and in the " Select Extra- 

 Tropical Plants" (Ninth Edition, 1895), Baron von Mueller has 

 supi^lemented his own experiences with a considerable amount of 

 information from other sources. The Baron considers that E. 

 globulus "is, among evergreen trees, of unparalleled rapid growth." 

 And of E. amygdalina he says that "plants grown on rather 

 barren ground near Melbourne have shown nearly the same 

 amazing rapidity of growth as those of E. globulvs." The follow- 

 ing instances relating to extra- Australian localities are selected 

 from a large number quoted by the Baron : — In eight years in 

 the south of France E. aniygdali7ia attained a height of 50 feet. 

 E. ylobuhis in Jamaica attained a height of 60 feet in seven 

 years; in California 60 feet in eleven years; in Florida 40 feet in 

 four years (stem-diameter 1 foot); in the ISTeilgherry Hills 30 feet 

 in four years (one tree, twelve years old, being 100 feet high, and 

 6 feet in girth, at 3 feet from the ground). I^ear Pretoria the 

 same species "attained a stem-circumference of 9| feet in 22 

 years"; and "in Algeria and Portugal it has furnished railway 

 sleepers in eight years, and telegraph-poles in ten years." 



Mr. H. C. Russell, F.B.S., the Government Astronomer, 

 supplied some particulars in some notes read before the Royal 

 Society of N.S. Wales in 1891, and these he has kindly supple- 

 mented with later information. 



The trees measured were Eucalypts, growing- at Mt. Victoria, 

 and Lake George, and others planted in Observatory Park. 



At Lake George one of four young trees was selected for 

 measurement in Januarj^^, 1885, when its girth three feet from 

 the ground was found to be 23 inches. On 10th November, 

 1891, its girth was 52J inches; on 22nd November, 1892, it was 

 54^ inches; on 1st Januar}^, 1894, 60^ inches; and in January, 

 1895, 63J inches. 



Other trees have been marked since the notes above-mentioned 

 were made, and the results will be watched with interest. At 

 Mt. Victoria on barren ground, about fifty years after Sir T, 

 Mitchell had cleared one of the hills for survey purposes, the trees 



