544 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 
No. 11.—A REVIEW OF THE CHARACTERS AVAIL- 
ABLE FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE EUCA- 
LYPTS, WITH A SYNOPSIS OF THE SPECIES 
ARRANGED ON A CARPOLOGICAL BASIS. 
By Ratpu Tarr, Professor of Natural History in the University 
of Adelaide. 
(Read Monday, January 10, 1898.) 
CoNSIDERABLE thought and much patient experimental investi- 
gation have been given to devising schemes for the classification 
of the 150 or so species of our Eucalypts. Every possible aspect 
has been under consideration—the woodman’s, the chemist’s, the 
histologist’s, and the systematic botantist’s, and, nevertheless, no 
satisfactory system has been evolved. The effort to devise a 
scheme based on the variation of one element which shall bring 
together species which seem from our conception to be naturally 
related has failed. In this dilemma we must admit that any 
system, never mind its apparent artificiality, that gives better 
results than hitherto is the one to be adopted till a more perfect 
one has been elaborated. For each suggested system of classifica- 
tion there has been lost sight of, in my judgment, what I may 
call handiness of application, for many of the characters utilised 
involve laborious examination or are those not readily obtainable. 
In this connection we should have regard to the kind of material 
‘the untrained collector usually brings to us, and the conservation 
of which involves the least trouble to him; certainly not the 
bark or kino, sometimes the flowers, but more generally the 
leaves and fruit. By way of leading up to my propesed carpo- 
logical basis of classification I will review the other characters 
which are available for classifactory purposes. 
HABIT. 
The Eucalypti comprise two habits of growth, viz., trees and 
shrubby trees, to which I apply the vernacular names of Gams 
and Mallees. Ido not know if I am correct in so doing, as I have 
failed to find any definitions of these well-known terms. 
I have constantly observed in seedlings and growths of one or 
two years of such gums, as JF. rostrata, lewcoxylon, viminalis, a 
large inflation of the base of the stem, either at the surface or 
just below the surface of the soil. In the species named this is 
eventually outgrown, but in the mallees it persists and increases 
in size proportionately with the development of the branches 
which are emitted from it—in the mallee this rudely globose bole 
is partially subterranean. The umbrella-like disposition of the 
