'5 



be appreciated by any one who has not seen some stretch 

 of country before and after its introduction. 



The seedling of the blue gum possesses a peculiarity 

 general to the genus. It does not look in the least like 

 the grown tree. The seedling varies as a plant as much 

 from the mature tree as do some insects in the larval state 

 from their mature form. The blue gum seedling has a 

 sharply square stem and branches, leaves opposite, sessile, 

 round, and horizontal to the branch. Occasionally the 

 young stem is six-sided and in this case the leaves and 

 stipules spring in threes, each group from alternate sides. 

 These early square or six-sided stems are so winged as to 

 resemble the bottom of a Sonoma snow shoe or the under 

 side of a skate runner. Ii is colored bright gendarme 

 blue, both in stems and leaves, with an appearance of 

 being slightly dusted with flour. The mature tree has 

 round stems and branches, with white bark or tan brown 

 just before the outer part is shed, the. leaves are sickle- 

 shaped, alternate with long stems, hang edgewise to the 

 sky, and they vary from a dark and often glossy green 

 to a dull gray color. 



This surprising difference between the seedling and the 

 more aged tree, caused several botanists in Europe to set 

 up a new species from the seedlings first raised in their 

 hot houses. 



In nearly every considerable plantation of blue gums 

 will be found a few specimens of what appears to be a re- 

 version to a more primitive type. This sort is usually in 

 the form ot a bush with numerous stems, though excep- 

 tionally with but one, and foliage of the yearling gum 

 that is to say, opposite, oval, sessile and blue, tending to 

 persist longer than in the regular globulus. It is quite 



