NOTES ON SOME TASMANIAN EUCALYPTS, 

 by 

 J. H. Maiden, F.L.S. 



(Government Botanist of New South Wales, and Director 

 of the Botanic Gardens, Sydney). 



Corresponding Member. 



(Received 16th March, 1914. Read 1 5th April, 1914 



Issued separately, 18th May, 1914.) 



In "A Research on the Eucalypts of Tasmania and their 

 Essential Oils," (^) Messi's. Baker and Smith have made 

 frequent reference to my work, and some observations are 

 necessary. They have given undue prominence to a paper 

 by me in these Proceedings for 1902, sometimes ignoring 

 that in two of my works {Critical Revision of the Genus 

 Eucalyptus and Forest Flora of New South Wales) ad- 

 ditional knowledge has enabled me to modify opinions 

 in the earlier paper considerably. I emphasise the point 

 that an author can claim to be judged by his latest utter- 

 ance on a given subject. 



The store of laboriously acquired details, as incoi-porated 

 in the above works, has brought difficultly accessible de- 

 scriptions and specimens under the notice of those inter- 

 ested, and it would be well if my readers would make it 

 their business to directly consult the evidence in regard to 

 Tasmanian species thus brought together. 



The paper of the joint authors to which I have refen-ed 

 owes much of its value to determinations of the composi- 

 tion of various oils ; further, there is much reference to 

 determinations of species on grounds which have no direct 

 reference to those sub.stanccs. It will be desirable to in- 

 vestigate some of the principles which underlie the rela- 

 tions of essential oils and the species which yield them. 



Accessory- characters (e.g., those based on oils) cannot ob- 

 viously be other than variable, yet Messrs. Baker and 

 Smith in another place ('-) say that the constituents have 

 been fixed and constant .... "their botanical char- 

 acters show a marked constancy . . . . ' "the che- 

 mical and botanical peculiarities must also have been 

 fixed primarily." The present writer has not seen this pro- 

 CD These Papers and Proceeding!, 1912, p. 139. 

 (2) Proc. Roy. Soc. X.S.W. X.KXV., 122 (1901). 



