1 82 THE TALLEST TREES IN THE WORLD. 



which according to Stanford's Australian Compendium 

 of Geography is justified by fact, for it is there stated that 



" one huge specimen, which lay across a stream, was found 

 by measurement to be 435 feet from its roots to where the 

 trunk had been broken off by the fall. This broken end 

 was 3 feet in diameter, so that at the lowest estimate the 

 entire tree must have been over 500 feet : by far the loftiest 

 tree yet ascertained to exist on the globe; at 5 feet from the 

 ground it measured 18 feet in diameter, and was probably 

 of the species Eucalyptus Obliqua or Amygdalina. " * 



It had been much burnt, and its top entirely destroyed, 

 so that it appears to have been difficult to decide upon 

 its exact variety. This great eucalyptus must there- 

 fore have evidently been considerably taller than the 

 largest of the Californian Sequoias, the very highest 

 of which is not supposed to have exceeded 450 feet, 

 and like its great Australian rival, this tree was also 

 partly destroyed, so that it was impossible to give 

 its original size, except from conjecture. 



According to Stanford, however, in the Dandenong 

 range, 40 miles east of Melbourne, the ravines contain 

 numerous eucalypti over 420 feet high, and one fallen 

 tree was discovered of 480 feet.f 



The foliage of the Australian gum trees (Eucalypti] 

 exhibit a striking peculiarity, being evidently intended 

 by Nature for maintaining existence in a country where 

 intense heat and drought prevails ; the leaves of most of 

 them therefore, are so arranged as to hang quite straight 

 down, thus presenting themselves edgeways to the 



* Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel for Australia, 

 Edited by Alfred R. Wallace, 1879, p. 172. 



-j- Ibid., p. 41. [Visitors to Australia often make excursions from 

 Melbourne for the purpose of seeing these trees, a trip which is well 

 worth making]. 



