38 NOTES ON A LIVING TREE STUMP; 
The following paper was read :— 
NOTES ON A LIVING TREE SURF. 
BY 
A. NORTON, Esog., M.L.A. 
IT is so commonly supposed that the trunk of a tree cannot 
long survive if it is not allowed to throw out branches or 
leaves, that I have thought it desirable to place on record 
an instance that has come under my own observation: where 
a stump of a tree has continued to live for many years 
although it has neither branch nor leaf. 
The specimen to which I refer is the stump of a Moreton 
Bay ash (Eucalyptus tesselaris), and is on the Rodd’s Bay 
run, at a spot about twenty-three miles from Gladstone, near 
the main road to Wide Bay. I have lately had it measured, 
and find that its height is g feet 3 inches, and its circum- 
ference is 4 feet 6 inches. Its appearance is that of a 
stump which had been left standing when the upper portion 
of the tree had been snapped off by a strong wind. The 
bark has grown over the top edges, but in the centre there 
is a hollow. With the exception of a small patch on one 
side the bark is as full of sap as that of an ordinary living 
tree; but it is simply a stump without any appearance of 
having at any time had a branch growing from it. I may 
say that when I first observed it, from fifteen to eighteen 
years ago, its appearance was just the same as it is now, 
and there was then no sign of the prostrate head which 
must at some time have been broken off by the wind or 
some other agency. Why it should continue to live in its 
present form is a question to which, though many persons 
have seen it, none appear to be able to give a satisfactory 
answer. It is one of the peculiarities of the Moreton Bay 
ash that its bark spreads over any foreign substance of moder- 
ate size which is placed ona livingexample of it, and instances 
are not very rare where a dead stick projecting from a 
surface root is covered up in this way, and presents a some- 
