794 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



thus cursorily alluded to a subject which is so important and so 

 full of general interest that it deserves much ampler treatment. 



9. — Eucalyptus. 



(a) A critical revision of the genus. 



Many years of travel in our forests, and critical examination 

 of botanical material, brought the fact home to ftie ver}'' clearly 

 that in many cases it was necessar}^ to obtain access to types. 

 Many species of our national genus Eucalyptus were described at 

 a period when botanical descrij)tions were frequently inadequate; 

 furthermore, recent monographers had not access to certain types 

 at all. I arrived at the conclusion that the only satisfactory way 

 of dealing with the genus was to obtain the original description 

 in every instance and, if possible, the loan of the type, a gift of a 

 co-type or a fragment of the type or, in the case of uniques, a 

 drawing made by a botanical artist. The principal object of my 

 visit to Europe in 1900 was to ascertain where the types were, 

 and to inspect as many as possible. I made coj)ious notes 

 in various British and foreign herbaria, made arrangements 

 for copies of descriptions from works not in any Australian 

 library, and for faithful drawings of uniques. For these I am 

 chiefly indebted to the kindness of Kew. Since my return I have 

 been entrusted with the loan of a number of important collections 

 of specimens of the genus numbering from about forty to nearly 

 a thousand. It is a mark of confidence in ocean steamships, and 

 in me personally that I much appreciate, that directors controlling 

 irreplaceable national collections should permit their treasures to 

 be sent to the Antipodes and back. Many of the specimens are 

 of the greatest interest and a number, I find, were not seen 

 either by Bentham or Mueller. Where duplicates of rare 

 specimens were available, they have been willingly presented to 

 the National Herbarium at the Botanic Gardens, and it is an 

 advantage to science that I have figured uniques, for one shudders 

 at the sight of a priceless, unfigured specimen, that might readily 

 be damaged or entirely lost. I am going to the bed-rock, so to 

 speak, with every species, and have already made a large number 



