EUCALYPTUS GLOBULUS EUCALYPTUS, BLUE GUM, GUM-TREE. 33 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. -- The wood is very heavy, quite hard, 

 close-grained, with fine medullary rays, and susceptible of it good 

 polish. It is of a pinkish buff color, the heart-wood striped and 

 mottled with purplish brown, and ample sap-wood mottled with 

 orange. xS/^'/T/r <Y/v^vVy, o.so^l); Relative Approximate Fuel 

 V<dn<', ( i . 7 ( . s s ; / V / <-, / / t< t<j<- of . 1 xA , 0.51; Weight of a Cubic Foot in 



50.05.* 



. Little use is made of this tree, though it will doubtless find 

 the place in ornamental planting or for potting in green houses to 

 which the beauty of its flowers and singularity of its foliage entitle it. 

 MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not known of this species. 



ORDER MYRTACE-2E : MYRTLE FAMILY. 



Leaves simple, opposite or alternate, without stipules, often pellucid-punctate, 

 coriacious and with marginal vein. Flowers usually perfect ; calyx-lobes valvate 

 or imbricate or consolidated into a lid ; petals 4 or 5 (rarely 6 or wanting) epigy- 

 nous ; stamens numerous ; ovary usually inferior (rarely free) 2-niany celled 

 (rarely 1-celled), styles undivided ; ovules 2 or many, aniphitropous. Fruit a cap- 

 sule or berry ; seeds without albumen. 



A large and important order of about 1800 species, mostly of trees and shrubs 

 of warm climates, generally pervaded with a fragrant and pungent volatile oil 

 and producing various spices, edible fruits, etc. 



GENUS EUCALYPTUS, L'HERITIER. 



Leaves thick, coriacious. smooth, mostly alternate though on young shoots 

 generally opposite, entire or nearly so, with thick margin, opposite sides generally 

 alike and arranged vertically by a twist in the petiole, glandular-punctate and of 

 marked flavor and odor when bruised. Flowers in 3-15-flowered umbels or soli- 

 tary in tho axils of the leaves, with firm cup-like calyx which opens with a decid- 

 uous lid ; petals wanting ; stamens very numerous, with slender filiform filaments 

 incurved in aestivation and conspicuously crowning and radiating from the edge 

 of the cup after the lid falls away, and with small introrse anthers ; ovary inferior 

 with several cells containing numerous ovules on axial placentae. Fruit a firm 

 woody cup-like, capsule loculicidally dehiscent at the top when mature and liber- 

 ating many abortive and perfect seeds. 



A very interesting and important genus of nearly 150 species of trees, confined 

 in a native state to Australia and the neighboring islands, some of great economic 

 value and among them there are giants attaining the great height of 400 ft. and 

 upwards the only rivals of our great Sequoias in size. The name Eucalyptus 

 is from the Greek, ev, well, and, KaXvirreiv, to cover, alluding to the stamens being 

 well covered by the lid. 



183- EUCALYPTUS GLOBULUS, LABILL. 

 EUCALYPTUS, BLUE GUM, GUM-TREE. 



Ger., Eucalyptus ; Fr., Eucalyptus ; Sp., Eucalyptus. 



Leaves variable to the extreme on the same tree, those of young trees to the 

 height of ten or fifteen feet and those on the lowermost branches to about the 

 same height on larger trees, being opposite, sessile, ovate-oblong, heart-shaped at 

 base, 4-S in. long and 2-4 in. broad, very glaucous blue green, erect and horizon- 

 tally disposed upon the branchlet, which is strongly four-angled and glaucous 



* Garden and Forest, Vol. Ill, p. 344. 



