COi 



APPENDIX. 



ably modified by the unusual Btracture of the leaves 

 and bark of the trees belonging to the genus £aca- 

 bjpiua, which form, on an average, four-fifths of the 

 forests in the temperate regions of Australia. 



It is well known that, in forests of deciduous trees, 

 the leaves project horizontally from the leaf-stalk, 

 showing a distinct upper and under side in the struc- 

 ture of their veins, parenchyma, and epidermis. This 

 position of the leaves gives that umbrageous charac- 

 ter to our forest trees which is well marked in the 

 sycamore and chestnut. In Australia, on the con- 

 trary, gum-trees and their congeners have their leaves 

 placed vertically upon the leaf-stalk, both sides being 

 of the same structure, like the mistleto leaf. Con- 

 sequently there is abundance of light from above 

 piercing these forests, rendering more cheerful what 

 would otherwise be gloomy in the Australian land- 

 scape, and permitting the sun's rays to penetrate 

 through the foliage, so as to fall upon the brilliant- 

 colouied flowers and green -sward which cover the 

 open forest lands, as it were, with a beautiful carpet. 

 Moreover, the leaves of this class of trees are rarely 

 more than an inch wide .and five inches long, being 

 simple, acute, and scimitar-shaped, the branches but 

 thinly covered with foliage, and the trees wide apart ; 

 so that, excepting their monotonous character, the 

 open forests of Australia are cheerful to the traveller, 

 salubrious to the settler, and are always well lighted 

 up by the sun and swept by the breeze. Tlie au- 

 tumnal fall of the leaf is likewise in some measure 

 represented by the annual stripping of the bark from 

 the trunks and branches of the giim trees, which is 

 seen in the accompanying plate, fig. 1. 



Of an opposite character is the general appeiu'ance 

 of the brushwoods, formed by shrubs and the class 

 of smaller trees in Australia. These thickets, termed 

 "scrubs" by the colonists, are dark, dank, and 

 dreary, and the plants so closely interwoven and 

 thorny that in many instances they are impenetrable 

 by man or beast. The contrast between them and 

 the neighbouring open forest land is remarkably de- 

 fined. While in the latter, as we have remarked, all 

 nature is diy, light, and cheerful, in the former the 

 traveller scarcely proceeds twenty steps when he is 

 enveloped in gloom, even at mid-day, while a hollow, 

 resounding canopy of foliage, formed of broad-leaved 

 climbers, fig-trees, laurels, and the like, echoes to his 

 progiess, as he forces his way through the crackling 

 brushwood, whilst a damp chill seizes his frame. 

 Here the botanist finds many of the rarest and most 

 beautiful Australian shrubs and trees, and, what is 

 remarkable, rarely of the same species as those which 

 grow outside its boundary. That indefatigable ex- 

 plorer and botanist, the lost and lamented Leich- 

 hardt, informed the writer of this article that in the 

 Moreton Bay district he counted seventy species of 

 shrubs and trees, within the area of a square mile, in 

 one of these scrubs, not one of which was found in 

 the af^'aoent forest. 



This remarkable feature is partly accounted for 

 from the tenacity with which these scrubs keep to 

 Boils formed by certain rocks. In one locality they 

 grow upon the trap-dikes which intersect the santl- 



stone formation, fomiing narrow belts of vegetation, 

 not more than one or two miles wide, and continuing 

 dense and unbroken for five, ten, fifteen, and fre- 

 quently twenty miles. So that if the direction of 

 one lies across the path of the settler, between his 

 homestead and the settlement, he has either to skirt 

 it, making a circuitous route, or to cut a road through 

 it. In other localities the nature of the soils is re- 

 versed, as shown by Leichhardt, during his journey 

 from Moreton Bay to Port Essiugton. " It was in- 

 teresting," he writes, "to observe how strictly the 

 scrab kept to the sandstone and stiff loam lying upon 

 it, whilst the mild black whinstone was without trees, 

 but covered with luxuriant grasses and herbs ; and 

 this fact struck me as remarkable, because, during 

 my travels in the Bunya country of Moreton Biiy, I 

 found it to be exactly the revei-se; the sandstone 

 spurs of the range being there covered with an open 

 well-graseed forest, whilst a dense vine brush extended 

 over the basaltic rock." The greatest known jungle 

 of this kind lies between Melbourne and Gipps' Land, 

 in Victoria, which is estimated to be nearly 200 miles 

 long and about 60 broad ; and although a track has 

 been found across it, so difficult is the journey through 

 its rocky region, that it takes the intrepid bushman 

 three days to cross it. 



White GuM-TnEB (Eucalyptus obliqua), Fig. 1. — 

 The genus Eucalyptus derives its name from the 

 well-marked connection of the calyx with its lid or 

 cahjptra, which is forced off by the pistils and 

 stamens, when blossoming. The gum trees of Aus- 

 tralia are the monarchs of the forest in that 

 country, and attain the height frequently of 150 

 feet, with a girth of 24 feet about a yard from the 

 ground. In Van Diemen's Land this may be con- 

 sidered the average dimensions of the trees in the 

 southern and western parts of the island, where we 

 have measured a fallen giant of the forest 260 feet in 

 length and 16 feet in diameter. However, the buts 

 of such enormous trees are not solid. At the same 

 time, some idea of their size may be entertained, 

 when from two to four men on horseback can find 

 room in their hollow trunks. The appearance of 

 a white-gum tree forest has no counterpart in the 

 northern hemisphere. From the base of the trunk 

 up to the minutest branches, the bark of the tree is 

 perfectly white, and the leaves of a leek-green colour. 

 Its general aspect is that which a forest of ash trees 

 would have, if their stems and branches were white- 

 washed. Their trunks, also, are generally naked for 

 about two-thirds of the way up ; and the branches 

 above that project at nearly right angles from them, 

 while the smaller branches frequently shoot up verti- 

 cally. The leaves show the specific character of the 

 foliage alluded to, particularly their leathery struc- 

 ture. On being crushed iu the hand, an essential oil 

 is expressed from them, which is contained in cavi- 

 ties, to preserve them during their perennial exist- 

 ence, and to enable them to withstand the aridity 

 and heat of the climate. As the name denotes, trees 

 of this genus exude gum from their tnmks. This 

 gum, however, is not a trae gimi, like that which is 

 yielded by the Acacias. It is, properly speaking, a 



