IN CALIFORNIA 35 



The Eucalypts 



Of even greater importance than the pepper tree 

 for wayside adornment, and of far greater influence 

 upon the aspect of the countryside, is the eucalyptus 

 or Australian gum tree. Its tall spires of verdancy, 

 swaying gently in the wind like giant grasses, are 

 conspicuous summer and winter from San Francisco 

 to the southern limits of the State, and harmonize 

 so well with the landscape that it is hard to realize 

 that they are of man's planting, not Nature's. 

 They are indigenous to Australia, where they form 

 vast natural forests. There are about a hundred 

 and fifty species not a thousand, as some enthusi- 

 astic Californians will be apt to tell you and of 

 these perhaps sixty may be met with in cultivation 

 to greater or less extent within the limits of our 

 Southwest. One species (Eucalyptus amygdalina] 

 sometimes attains in its Australian home the dizzy 

 height of over four hundred feet, thus far overtop- 

 ping any living specimens of our own mammoth 

 Sequoia, but it lacks the girth and all-round huge- 

 ness that insure to the latter the title of being the 

 Big tree. 



"They tell me," said a lumberman, whose interest 

 in trees was mainly a matter of board measure, 



