i02 Hart, Eucalypis about Creswick and Clinics. [voi"^xxxiv 



A group of about eighteen trees occurs in the valley of BuUarook 

 Creek, near Kingston, and a patch of about sixty trees, with 

 a very few Swamp Gums and Yellow Box, may be seen about 

 five miles north-west of Creswick, east of the Clunes road. 

 This was the last place at which I found it and the Swamp 

 Gum in this direction. From its power to ascend to the tops 

 of high mountains, and to occur there alone, it is evidently 

 able to stand cold and wind and strong sunshine at least under 

 mountain conditions. The trees on the plains often show fine 

 examples of the repair of breakages. In its high level situations 

 it is also at times no doubt liable to excessive soil wetness. It 

 is, therefore, a not unlikely species for the plains. It occurs 

 just off the plains, but it seems to be alone among the plains 

 species in this district in the extent to which it avoids the 

 closer-timbered bedrock country. A couple of trees which 

 came under my observation growing close to a Candlebark 

 and a Yellow Box suggest strongly that the White Sallee would 

 not stand the competition of these species on the bedrock 

 country. In the forest of the high level volcanic country it 

 has grown with Swamp Gum and Candlebark, but here the 

 conditions of soil and climate probably suit it better than in 

 the bedrock country. Where I have noticed it in lower country, 

 as at Mentone and Dandenong, it was not subjected to severe 

 competition. The open plains seem to suit it, and it is said 

 to reach to the neighbourhood of Portland. 



/:,". rostrata, Red Gum, while a typical tree of the plains, 

 occurs at lower elevations than the Swamp Gum in this dis- 

 trict, reaching about 1,150 feet, and on the south side of the 

 Divide, near by, probably 1,250 feet. Swam}) Gum runs freely 

 to much higher levels. 



Some occurrences of Swamp Gum and Red Gum near Mel- 

 bourne suggest that E. rostrata is less tolerant of overlong 

 wetness if associated with too much humus and lack of oxygen 

 in the soil, though it will stand flooding, and even long- 

 standing water, as in the swamp north of Clunes. As we go 

 north from Dandenong we sec at first Red Gum country, but 

 on the wet flat near the creek at the police paddock Swamp 

 Gum has taken its place, tliough Red Gum occurs near the 

 creek a little higher up. On the Scorcsby Flats (20(j feet alwve 

 sea-level) there is Swamp Gum and no Red Gum. Southward 

 from Dandenong Red Gum seems to give place to Swamj) (ium 

 at the edge of the Carrum Swamp, l)ut the low rise at Wells- 

 road, Carrum, carries Red Gum. About Brighton, Red Gum 

 is the tyi)ical tree of the valleys, but it apjx'ars to be absent 

 from the i)caty hollows to the south-east above the heads of these 

 valleys near Cheltenham. Swamp Gum occurs with Red Gum 

 on a flat on Bay-road, east of Sandringham. South oi the 



