40 GLEANINGS AND ORIGINAL MEMORANDA 
I 
Cowthorne in Yorkshire, which is 48 feet in circumference at three feet from the ground. Some hollow pollard oaks are 
^Cj^slllT^nl^r.,, in Norfolk, .hich is 70 feet at the ground. The second tree, a^o l^^^^^^l^^^^;^^ 
Itm«^urea from the root to the first branch, 220 feet, and the top measures 64-m all 284 feet without inchiding the 
iTlTl^rdecI^d and gone, which would can^ U -ch heyond 300 feet. ^^'^^Y^-^^^^^-^^l 10 l^Tfit o/Sbex 
at the first branch 12 feet, giving an average of 24 feet. This would allow for the sohd bole, 10 120 feet of timbei, 
wit^Lut iuZg any of the 'branches. Alttgether. as green timber, it must have weighed -- thanJOO ton. The 
oak that gave the most timber was the Gelonos oak, in Monmouthshire, which, with ,ts branches, turned out 2426 feet, 
but the body alone only 450 feet. 
» » * * 
trulj' 
«< Thomas J. Ewing. 
«Hi8 Excellency the President mentioned lus having strongly recommended to the Right Hon, the SecreUry of 
State for the Colonies, and to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the timber of our Blue Gnm (Eucalyptus globulm). 
Plank can be obtained from it in lengths surpassing those of any other timber tree ; and it may be sent home and sold 
at U, per foot, while oak plank (to which it is not inferior in quality), of the largest obtainable lengths, costs 2^, U. per 
foot.*' ' 
SimUar, although less striking, accounts of these gum trees are given by Mr. James Backhouse in his « Journal of a 
Visit to the Attstralian Colonies," as will be seen by the following extracts ;— ». , r, 7 
« On an old road, called the Lopham Eoad, a few miles from the Bay, we measured some sti-mgy bark {Eucalyptus 
Toim(a) trees, taking their circumference at about five feet from the ground. One of these, which was rather hoUow at the 
bottom and broken at the top, was 49 feet round ; another that was solid, and supposed to be 200 feet high, was 41 feet 
round ; and a third, supposed to be 250 feet high, was 55^ feet round— as this tree spread much at the base, it would 
be nearly 70 feet in circumference at the surface of the ground. My companions spoke to each other when at the 
opposite side of this tree to myself, and thdr voices sounded no distant, that I concluded tJiey had inadvertently left me to 
see s<me other object, and immediately called to them. They, in answer, remarked the distant sound of my voice, and 
inqmred if I were behind the tree I" (P. 115.) 
« In company with J. Milligan and Henry Stephenson, a servant of the company, from near Richmond in Yorkshire, 
we visited a place in the forest remarkable for an assemblage of gigantic stringy barks, and not far from the junction of 
the Emu River with the Loudwater, the latter of which takes its name from three falls over basaltic rock at short 
intervals, the highest of which is 1 7 feet. Within half a mile we measured standing trees as follows, at four feet from 
the ground. Several of them had one large excrescence at the base, and one or more far up the trunk :— No, 1, 45 feet 
in circumference, supposed height 180 feet ; the top was broken, as is the case with most large- trunked trees ; the trunk 
was a little injured by decay, but not hollow. This tree had an excrescence at the base, 12 feet across, and 6 feet high, 
protruding about 3 feet. No. 2, 37i feet in circumference ; tubercled. No. 3, 35 feet in circumference ; distant from 
No. 2 about eighty yards. No. 4, 38 feet in circumference; distant from No. 3 about fifty yards. No. 5, 28 feet in 
circumference. No. 6, 30 feet in circumference. No. 7, 32 feet in circumference. No, 8, 55 feet in circumference ; 
supposed to be upwards of 200 feet high ; very little injured by decay ; it carried up its breadth much better than the 
large trees on the Lopham Road, and did not spread so much at the base. No. 9, 40J feet in circumference ; sound and 
tall- No. 10, 48 feet in circumference ; tubercled, tall, with some cavities at the base, and much of the top gone. 
"A prostrate tree near to No. 1, was 35 feet in circumference at the base, 22 feet at 66 feet up, 19 feet at 110 feet up ; 
there were two large branches at 120 feet ; the general head branched off at 150 feet ; the elevation of the tree, trace- 
able by the branches on the ground, was 213 feet. We ascended this tree on an inclined plane formed by one of Us limbs 
and walked four abreast with ease upon its trunh I In its fall it had overturned another, 1 68 feet high, which had brought 
up with its roots a ball of earth 20 feet across. It was so much imbedded in the earth that I could not get a sti'ing round 
it to measure its girth. This is often the case with fallen trees. On our return, I measured two stringy barks, near the 
houses at the Hampshire Hills, that had been felled for splitting into rails, each 180 feet long. Near to these, is a tree 
that has been felled, which is so large that it could not be cut into lengths for splitting, and a shed has been erected 
against it ; the tree semngforthe back f (P. 121.) 
As we have already observed, there seems to be no reason why these prodigious trees should not, at some future day , 
decorate the scenerj^ of Great Britain. Devonshire and Cornwall, or Cork and Kerry, would cei-tainly prove capable of 
bringing them to maturity. 
299* Hebeclinium ianthinum. Hooker, {alias Conoclinium ianthinum Morren. See Yol. i.^ 
No. 172.) 
Sir W. Hooker is of opinion that this plant should be referred to the genus Hebeclinium^ rather than to Cmoclinium^ 
and that it is a close congener of RebecUnium macrophyllum, a common plant of Jamaica, belonging to the first section 
of De Candolle. « As a species," he adds, the « plant differs abundantly in its large purple flowers and in the cuneate base 
to the leaf. It flowers in the winter months with us, and is then very ornamental. An herbaceous rather than a 
shrubby plant. Stem and branches terete, clothed with 
rusty down. Leaves opposite, on very long petioles, often a 
e base. Verv acute rather than nrnminatp pnarfif>1v and ftftfiU 
