556 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 
Baron Sir F. von Mueller has on many occasions pointed out 
the rapid decadence or approaching extinction of many well- 
known forms of vegetable life, and in his late admirable presi- 
dential address again pointedly brought the subject under notice. 
There is no doubt that, had it not been for the two gentlemen 
named above, /. cordata would have become extinct in Tasmania, 
as it is doubtful if it can now be found in the locality attributed 
to it by the celebrated botanist, Labillardiere, in Recherche 
Bay. Mr. Abbott is, however, cultivating the tree in the local 
Botanic Garden, and will thus save it from extinction and the 
bush fires, now, alas! all too numerous upon the slopes of the 
once densely-timbered Mount Wellington. 
£. cordata, in its extreme isolation, is in Tasmania analagous 
to £. Alpina, which is confined to the summit of Mount Williams 
in Victoria. 
£. cordata was originally discovered by Labillardiére in 
Recherché Bay in 1806, and again, much later, on the banks of 
the Huon River by Sir J. D. Hooker, also by Robert Brown at 
the same place. Many years after, Messrs. Stephens and Abbott 
found it growing at Recherche, Sandfly, Huon Road, and Norfolk 
Peninsula. It would appear to grow only in certain localities 
and its Aadi¢az is limited to a restricted area. From the fact that 
I personally never saw the tree growing in Tasmania, though I 
travelled down both banks of the Huon River for many miles, 
also down the coast line to the most southern point of Recherche 
Bay and also on Norfolk Peninsula, and later on the Sandfly, all 
the time keeping a watchful eye on the eucalypts of the districts 
referred to, it seems to me that the tree is exceedingly restricted 
in the area of its growth, and could only be found by the merest 
chance. It is, I think, evident that the tree is not as abundant 
as it was formerly, also that a tree reported to Baron von Mueller 
by Mr. Coombs as £. cordata should more properly be referred to 
£. urnigera, of which a specimen is exhibited. The latter is 
common, and grows to a large size on Mount Wellington, where 
I noted it as growing 60 or 70 feet high, with red wood not unlike 
Jarrah (4. marginata). Such an error is quite possible in the 
face of the fact that Bentham chronicled in -lora Australiensis, 
Oldfield’s opinion, that Z£. corduta was the young state of 
£. obliqua, These two trees, we now well know, are quite 
dissimilar in every way. 
£. cordata, it will be noticed, has its leaves sessile, opposite, 
orbicular, cordate, and slightly crenulated, and a/ways clasping at 
the base. The disposition of the seed vessels is primarily in 3’s, 
rarely in 4’s, flowers axillary, sometimes terminal, stalks some- 
times angular, stalklets none. 
From the Baron’s description it will be noted that the leaves 
of £. cordata are not connate. This peculiar perfoliate or junction 
of opposite leaves is not uncommon to several of our eucalypts in 
