Eucalyptus 



1613 







their two cells parallel and distinct or divergent and confluent at their apex, opening 

 usually by longitudinal slits, rarely by terminal pores. Ovary, free at the apex, two 

 to six-celled ; style long ; stigma convex or flat, undivided ; ovules numerous in each 

 cell, the majority remaining unfertilised. Fruit, consisting of the enlarged truncate 

 calyx-tube, enclosing a hard woody resinous capsule, which is provided with three to 

 five valves, which are either wholly or partially exserted or entirely enclosed. Seeds 

 numerous, but very few fertile ; minute, polygonal, winged in a few species. 



In Tasmania all the species take at least twelve months for the flower-bud to 

 reach maturity, and another year for the fruit to perfect. 1 None of the species at low 

 altitudes have any constant flowering period, and may be found in flower in any 

 month of the year, one tree flowering at midsummer, while another beside it will 

 not flower till winter. The flowers are fertilised by honey-feeding birds. 



The leaves of all the species, and often the young branchlets, flowers, and fruits 

 contain numerous oil-vesicles. The leaves of many species are distilled to yield 

 this oil, which is variable in composition, but is volatile and antiseptic and used for 

 pharmaceutical purposes. 2 The bark of several species exudes a resin, 3 called kino, 

 which contains tannin in commercial quantities ; and it is on account; of this resin, 

 that the name gum trees was applied to the genus. 



In many species of Eucalyptus and other genera of Myrtaceae and Proteacea^, 

 which are natives of Australia, the leaf-blades, as was pointed out by R. Brown, 4 are 

 not placed horizontally like those of European broad-leaved trees ; but are, by the 

 twisting of their stalks, set vertically. This is a provision to lessen evaporation in 

 the dry climate of Australia, since the narrow edge and not the broad surface of the 

 leaf is directed towards the sun. In the Australian species of Acacia, the same 

 adaptation is effected by the non-development of the blade of the leaf, the stalk 

 becoming expanded, simulating the blade and forming a so-called phyllode, which 

 is also directed vertically. In the Australian forests of Eucalypti and Acacias, the 

 linear edges of the leaves and phyllodes cast little shadow, and sunlight streams on 

 the ground. Behr 5 describes a typical forest in South Australia, as follows : "As a 

 rule a dense meadow sward, in most cases accompanied by a light park-like forest of 

 gigantic Eucalypti, whose crowns, however, never meet. The smooth stems, freed 

 from their outer layers of cortex, stand apart at definite and often regular distances." 



The currently accepted opinion that some species of Eucalyptus in Australia are the 

 tallest and largest trees in the world is based on records for Eucalyptus amygdalina, 



1 Rodway, Wild Flowers of Tasmania, 49 (19 10), states, however, that E. globulus and many other species take two 

 years from the first appearance of the bud to the fall of the operculum, and another two years to mature fruit. E. calophylla 

 of West Australia flowers in a few months, and takes a year to produce ripe fruit. The seeds are retained and remain quite 

 fertile for several years in the capsules, which open their valves often only when exposed to forest fires. Seedlings usually 

 spring up in consequence in burnt-over lands. Most of the species also when killed by fire, rapidly regenerate by suckers 

 from the roots. 



2 Cf. R. T. Baker and H. G. Smith, Researches on Eucalypts (1902). A complete set of oils of 109 species, with 

 herbarium specimens of the timber and bark, are preserved in the Pharmaceutical Museum, Bloomsbury Square, London. Cf. 

 Pharmac. Journ. 1904, p. 187. 



3 This is called Australian or Eucalyptus kino, and is different from the officinal kino, which is produced by Pterocarpus 

 Marsupium, a large deciduous tree of central and southern India. Cf. Fluckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacographia, 894 (1879). 



* Botany of Terra Australia, i. 62 (1814). 



6 Linnaa, xx. 546 (1847). Schimper, Plant Geography, 495, 528, figs. 260, 261, 262 (1903) gives a general account 

 of these forests, with pictures of the various types. 



