47 



opportunity to break into activity. If the favourable con- 

 ditions do not occur within a period, varying with the 

 species, but probably never extending beyond a few years, 

 changes will have taken place within the embryo which 

 will render it incapable of responding. It will be dead. 

 But should the seed before it has lost vitality find itself 

 on soil that is damp and not too cold, it will absorb moist- 

 ure, the root will grow out of the coats down into the 

 earth, and in about 10 days the leaves, with the shoot 

 between them, will expand into the air. It should be 

 noted that there are a pair of first, or seed, leaves; that 

 they are equal and opposite to one another. This is a 

 marked feature of the largest of the two divisions of 

 flowering plants. Very soon the shoots grow up into 

 a stem, and branches on its way to attain the dimensions 

 of a tree. With this, as with most Eucalypts, the leaves 

 of the younger parts are without stalks, and placed in 

 opposite pairs ; also, they are broader than the later ones, 

 and do not hang down like them. Soon the branches grow 

 the mature foliage, which is different; the leaves are nar- 

 row, stalked, alternately placed, and hang down, so as 

 not to expose their surface at right angles to the sun. Some 

 few Gums bear but little juvenile foliage ; others retain it 

 for life ; while most, in response in injury, will revert to 

 it. It is a common thing for a bunch of twigs with juvenile 

 foliage to spring from a spot where the tree has been 

 injured. Probably the ancestors of our Gums had opposite 

 stalkless leaves, and the other state is an adaptation better 

 suited to our conditions. 



When a Gumtree is a few years old it commences to bear 

 flowers. The size of these, their arrangement, and some 

 other details vary with the species. The flowers of Manna- 

 gum are small; the solid part, that is, not taking the spread 

 of the stamens into consideration, seldom equals three lines 

 diameter; in some dwarf Peppermints they are still 

 smaller: while in Blue-gum they approach an inch.' They 

 are arranged three together. A short stalk grows in the 

 axil of a very young leaf. As the parts grow older three 

 lesser stalks, each bearing a flower, appear on the end of 

 this. In Blue-gum the flower is single, and closely placed 

 in the axil; in Stringy-bark, Peppermint, Weeping-gum, 

 and some others they are many, but all arising from the 

 apex of the common flower-stalk. The bud is oblong, and 

 it is easy to see it is divided horizontally about the centre 

 into two different halves. On maturity the upper part 

 falls off, and looks very like a mitre or hood, and the 



