

PAPERS READ. 



NOTE ON EUCALYPTUS LEUCOXYLON (F. v. M.). 



By W. Woolls, Ph.D., F.L.S. 



When Vol. III. of the Flora Australiensis was published, I was 

 firmly persuaded that two very distinct species of Eucalyptus 

 had been united together under the name E. leucoxylon (F. v. ML), 

 the one representing a " White Gum" of Victoria and South 

 Australia, and the other the " Red-flowering Iron-bark" of New 

 South Wales (E. sideroxylon, A. Cunn. in Mitchell's Tropical 

 Australia, p 339). Having subsequently had an opportunity of 

 examining E. leucoxylon in a living state in Victoria, and the red- 

 flowering variety of the same cultivated in the Rev. Dr. Cameron's 

 garden at Richmond, and also of comparing specimens of the 

 respective trees with the figures of the species in Brown's " Forest 

 Flora of South Australia" I have no hesitation in recommending 

 that Cunningham's name should be restored to our Red-flowering 

 Iron-bark. The Victorian and South Australian E. leucoxylon is 

 a " Gum" with smooth bark, of moderate size (seldom exceeding 

 20 or 30 feet), and wood remarkable for its pale colour. According 

 to Brown, the bark is deciduous in December, and in the young 

 trees " it is yellow or reddish-green in colour, quite smooth, and 

 somewhat shining,'' while the wood, which " when dry is hard and 

 tough, is of a yellowish- white or pale pinkish-white." The tree 

 associated with this is a very deeply furrowed Iron-bark, common 

 to several places on this side of the Dividing Range, as well as in 

 the interior. The bark of it is persistent, and the wood, though 

 not so tough as that of the White Iron-bark (E. paniculata, Sm.), 

 is of a very dark colour, and useful for fencing and carpenter's 

 rough work. The late Sir William Macarthur when collecting woods 

 for the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867, did me the honour to 

 consult me about this Iron-bark, and having, by my direction, 



