EUCALYPTUS ROSTRATA. 



neither very shining, nor of very dark-green, indeed not rarely of a dull and pale hue, particularly 

 in arid regions of the interior. The umbels are sometimes crowded, but never strictly paniculated. 

 A narrow and elongated outer quickly deciduous operculum covers not rarely the normal lid. 



The writer gave to this tree already in 1847 the name of E. longirostris, before that bestowed 

 by Schlechtendal was published ; and as the now generally adopted designation had been anticipated 

 by the Abbe Cavanilles (for the previously established E. robusta), the name E. longirostris 

 found its way into several publications, for instance the Nederlandisk Kruitkuudig Archief of 1859, 

 p. 125. On the whole this is one of the most easily recognized of all species ; still instances 

 occur, when it merges almost into E. viminalis and completely into E. tereticornis ; indeed from 

 a strictly phytographic view it should be considered merely a variety of that species, but for 

 convenience sake and practical purposes the specific name may well be retained for so important a 

 tree as this. It is also almost linked by exceptional transit-forms with E. rudis, which takes its 

 place in litoral South-West Australia, while E. tereticornis replaces it in many coast-tracts of 

 Queensland, New South "Wales and Grippsland. The only differences of E. tereticoruis consist in 

 the generally more elongated and often blunter lid of the calyx, very gradually tapering upwards, 

 constituting a narrow cone, and in the perhaps rather more protruding summit of the fruit ; the 

 filaments are also often straight while in bud, as in E. cornuta and its allies, through not being 

 forced to inflexion within the long cavity of the lid. In respect to the fruit E. exserta approaches 

 closer to E. tereticornis than to E. rostrata, differing from both in the persistency of its outside 

 wrinkled and rough, inside somewhat fibrous bark ; both E. tereticornis and E. exserta have the 

 stalklets often thicker and shorter than E. rostrata. E. exserta, the "Bendo" of the Aborigines 

 (O'Shanesy), is now known to range from the Burnett- to the Gilbert-River, but does not extend to 

 West Australia. The main distinctions of E. viminalis consist in its having typically only three 

 flowers to each stalk, in the generally shorter stalklets, in the lid being never contracted into a 

 long beak-like acumen and in the valves not being so much elevated above the margin of the fruit- 

 calyx by the intervening rim. In E. rudis the bark is extensively persistent and rough, the leaves 

 are often broader, hardly so regularly and distinctly feather-veined, the flowers are fewer in the 

 umbels and mostly larger, the calyces are often dark-colored, the lid is almost conical, the half- 

 ripe fruit somewhat bellshaped oo account of its prominent narrow slightly expanding margin, 

 the ovary is then more sunk, the ripe fruit is usually larger, less or not rounded at the summit, 

 but rather semiovate, not very convex, nor very wide at the rim, by which means the exserted 

 portion is more evidently shorter than the tube of the fruit-calyx, or the valves may remain even 

 half enclosed ; to these distinctions may be added, that the leaves of young seedlings are roundish 

 and almost sessile, not narrow-lauceolar as in E. rostrata. The distinction of E. patellaris is still 

 more evident. 



E. rostrata supplies our well known Red Gum-timber, which is so highly prized for its 

 unsurpassed durability, especially under ground ; it is very dense and in its grain flexuous but 

 comparatively short, bearing an enormous downward pressure and is but slightly subject to 

 longitudinal shrinking ; it remains for very long periods indestructible in fresh or salt water or in 

 wet ground. Its principal uses are for railway-sleepers, telegraph poles, fence- and other posts, 

 piles, bridge-planks, culverts, wheelwrights' work (especially felloes), engine-buffers ; shipbuilders 

 employ it extensively for main-stem, stern-post, inner post, deadwood, floor-timbers, futtocks, 

 transoms, knighthead, hawse-pieces, cant-, stern-, quarter- and fashion-timber, bottom planks, 

 breasthooks and riders, windlass, bowrails &c. ; it should be steamed before it is worked for 



