AND THEIR ESSENTIAL OILS. 159 



lather than add another name to the already long list of 

 Eucalyptus species we have decided to let the name stand, 

 but give the authorship to A. Cunningham, and this will 

 accord with his specimen from Ilobart (1819) at Kew and 

 bearing his name, as he has thus a priority claim to the 

 name over that of the last two authors. 



The tree to which these remarks refer is the smooth- 

 barked, tall, upstanding Gum at the head of Gentle Annie 

 Falls, Hobart, but it is fairly distributed throughout the 

 island. 



Description of Species. — It is a fairly tall tree, with 

 clean, smooth, yellow or whitish bark, sometimes rough 

 for a few feet at the base. Sucker leaves opposite or alter- 

 nate, very narrow, mostly 1 Tine wide and about 2 inches 

 long, on filiform rugose branchlets ; only midrib showing, 

 edges thickened. The leaves (normal) narrow, lanceolate, 

 jjetiolate, to narrow linear, lanceolate, under 3 inches long 

 and up to ]-inch wide, not shining, venation hidden in the 

 leaf texture, midrib only showing on the underside, alter- 

 nate. Peduncles axillary, with few flowers in the head. 

 Buds clavate, operculum depressed, hemispherical. 



Fruits hemispherical, ^-inch in diameter, slightly shin- 

 ing, on a rather slender pedicel, rim red scarcely domed, or 

 truncate, tips of the valves just exserted. 



Tirnhtr. — Pinkish, fissile, easy to work, and specifically 

 light, and suitable for indoor work only. 



Chemistry. 



Essential Oil. — Material of this species was obtained 

 from the Springs, Mt. Wellington, and collected in Janu- 

 ary, 1912, at a time of the year when a maximum yield of 

 oil might be expected. The average yield of oil from leaves 

 and terminal branchlets, collected as would be done for 

 commercial oil-distillation, was 18 per cent. The crude 

 oil was reddish in colour, caused by the small amount of 

 iron from the still, and had a peppermint odour, due to the 

 piperitone present. It contained much phellandrene and a 

 considerable amount of eucalyptol. Pinene was absent, 

 or present only in very small quantity. The specific grav- 

 ity of the crude oil at 15° C. = 09096 ; rotation aj) = 

 — 10"2O ; refractive index at 24^ C = r4659; and was 

 soluble in 6 volumes 70 per cent, alcohol. 



On rectification, only a few drops of acid water and vola- 

 tile aldehydes came over below 1730 Q (corr.), at which 



