1C2 JOURNAL OF THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM (vol. ii 



ago more than five to eight inches annually. Truly the Eucalypts are 

 extraordinary in many ways. They have highly specialized flowers 

 wliich in many species are very large and of brilliant colors, they furnish 

 most valuable hardwoods and grow to a lofty size in regions where one 

 would suppose no tree could possibly exist. Take the Salmon Gum 

 (E. salmonophloia F. v, MuelL). On the Goldflelds area where the rain- 

 fall varies from 5 to 10 inches this tree grows a hundred feet tall with a 

 clean, polished trunk full ten feet in girth. With numerous other species 

 of rather less size it is the dominant tree in rather open forests which 

 cover many hundreds of square miles and furnishes timber, the second 

 strongest in Australia, and invaluable for mining purposes. Indeed but 

 for this tree and the Gimlet (E. saliibris F. v. Muell) it is questionable if 

 tlie goldflelds of Western Australia, which have to date yielded upwards 

 of four hundred million dollars worth of gold, could have been developed. 

 Anotlier anomalous thing about this tree is that, like all otlier Eucalypts 

 of Western Australia, it is surface-rooting! A degree or two of frost is 

 not unknown in the region where it grows and I am told that it is flourish- 

 ing in parts of South Africa. I cannot help thinking that this tree would 

 be a good subject to plant for forestry purposes in the hot, arid parts of 

 Lower California, Texas, New Mexico and of Arizona. Of course the Sal- 

 mon Gum like all other plant of this Hemisphere are useless in the Arnold 

 Arboretum but they would be of immense value to California. We 

 of the north know little about the Eucalytus and to us the Blue Gum 

 (E. globulus LabilL) and one or two others do duty for the whole genus. 

 We know that they are mighty trees which furnish valuable timber but 

 I doubt if many of us realize the ornamental character and great beauty 

 of the flowers of a number of the species. The scarlet-flowered E. fici- 

 folia F. V, Muell. , which is found wild only on a very limited area near 

 the sea in the southwest of Western Australia, nmst rank among the most 

 beautiful of trees. It is of small size, quick-growing, has large leaves 

 and terminal masses of flowers from pale orange to crimson in color. The 

 red-flowered E. torquata Luehm. is another small tree and this has axillary 

 clusters of flowers which varv in color from white to scarlet. About E. 

 vutcrocarpa Hook. I may add here that the flowers are often 7 inches 

 across ! 



The wood of the Jarrah (E. niarginata Smith) is well-known through 

 its use as strcet-i)aving blocks and for railway ties. Useful as it is for these 

 purposes it is altogether wrong that so valuable a wood should be so 

 basely employed. The proper use of Jarrah-wood is for making furni- 

 ture. The tallest and most beautiful of the Western Australian species 

 is the Karri {E, duersicolor F. v. Muell.). Trees little short of 300 

 feet tall with a trunk clean of branches for fully 150 feet are common. Con- 

 sidering the height of this tree the trunk is coinparatively slender, seldom 

 exceeding 30 feet but it tapers very gradually. The bark is white and 

 marbled and the trunks suggest columns of some mighty cathedral. Rank- 

 ing second in height is the Red Tingle {E. Jaclcsonii), another handsome 



