president's address. 795 



of interesting observations. A. number of discoveries of more or 

 less importance are only awaiting time and opportunity for publi- 

 cation ; in other cases interesting lines of enquiry have been 

 suggested which, it is hoped, may, in some instances, lead to a 

 better knowledge of the genus. The research has developed into 

 one of far greater magnitude than I anticipated when I left for 

 Europe, but I have put my hand to the plough and will not turn 



back. 



6. Variation in Uucalyptus under cultivation. 



The variation of Eucalypts under cultivation is remarkable, 

 and study of it promises some valuable results. So much, indeed, 

 do these plants depart from the types that Naudin, Trabut and 

 Kinney have between them described a large number of new 

 species from cultivated plants in the south of France, in Algeria 

 and in California respectively. Mueller always maintained (1) 

 that it was in the highest degree improbable that species unknown 

 in Australia should have persistently escaped the notice of 

 collectors other than seed-collectors; and (2) that the cultivated 

 species were really varieties of spontaneous species. I have seen 

 additional cultivated "species" which have been published since 

 Mueller's death and others which he never saw, and I also agree 

 that those I have seen so far are but cultivated varieties of our 

 species. However, in order to make observations really valuable, 

 collections of cultivated Eucalypts should be made in as many 

 parts of the world as possible. I have already accumulated a 

 large series, and it is my intention to depict variations from the 

 type, this being a research in which profuse pictorial illustration 

 is absolutely necessary. So far as I have gone, I can say that 

 Eucalyptus under cultivation exhibits variations which throw 

 valuable light on the affinities of the spontaneous varieties to the 

 types, and also indicate affinities (perhaps in some cases unsus- 

 pected) betw^een species. When our facts are properly classified, 

 I do not doubt that the stud}' of cultivated forms will be a most 

 powerful adjunct to a study of the spontaneous ones, enabling us 

 to better assess the relative value of species, and to group the 

 members of this protean genus, with respect to their true affinities, 



