EUCALYPTUS MARGIN ATA. 



short diagnostic phrase and quoting doubtfully Conn's notation, gave for his E. marginata 

 distinctly Port Jackson as the native locality ; he received in 1798 his cultivated specimen from 

 Mr. W. T. Aiton, the Director of the Royal Garden of Kew, who in the second edition of the 

 hortus Kewensis gives no clue to the native place of growth of this species beyond asserting, that 

 the seeds came from Archibald Menzies, the companion of Captain Vancouver in the naval 

 expedition, during which in 1791 King George's Sound was discovered. Menzies had only at 

 that place an opportunity to gather Australian plants and seeds, as Vancouver landed on no 

 other port of our southern continent ; hence the native locality of the Kew plant, if the seeds 

 really came from Menzies, is placed beyond doubt. Nevertheless Sir James Smith's definition 

 would not lead to the recognition of that species, because he compares the leaves to those of 

 E. robusta, but they are not so broad, nor their stalks short, while the covers (as Smith calls the 

 lid) of the calyces are said to be not longer than the tube ; all this is at variance with E. margi- 

 nata, as now understood, while the last-mentioned characteristic given by Smith would well 

 compare with E. pilularis, from which however he distinguished it by the oval leaves, a 

 characteristic not generally applicable to E. marginata. Again De Candolle did not indicate (as 

 in the case of E. cornuta), that E. marginata came from the south-western coast, nor did any of 

 the earlier writers refer to the form of the anthers, first made use of for diagnostic purposes by 

 myself, which note at once would have led to the recognition of E. marginata among western 

 species. Mr. Richard Kippist, the librarian of the Linnean Society, when kindly inspecting for 

 me the typical specimens of Eucalypts in Sir James Smith's collection, supposed also, that this 

 like nearly all others of the early described congeners came from the environs of Sydney (vide 

 fragm. phyt. Austr. ii. 174). That the tree received several specific names arose also partly from 

 the circumstance, that the bark was variously described by collectors ; hence E. floribunda was 

 regarded as distinct on account of its smooth bark (belonging to the Leiophloije) ; but we are 

 now aware, that this observation of several collectors referred only to the young state of the tree, 

 before the cortical layers could sufficiently accumulate to assume the thickness and roughness 

 shown by that of any species of the Pachyphloiae (or perhaps Rhytiphloiaj), to which E. marginata 

 really pertains. Again E. hypoleuca bore a misleading name, not applicable to any but very 

 exceptional forms of the Jarrah. The original specific appellation also gave no clue, as the 

 margin of the leaves of E. marginata is not more thickened than in many other species, 

 particularly those with rather horizontal than vertical leaves, in all of which the edge rolls 

 slightly back. 



E. marginata is the only tall West-Australian species belonging to the Renantherae, but 

 E. buprestium and E. santalifolia (E. pachyloma, Benth.) are also there referable to that section 

 of the genus, although the anthers of the last mentioned are rather more heartshaped ; it agrees 

 also with most congeners of that series in having the seeds mostly of uniform shape, though not 

 of equal size. 



In comparing the diagnostic marks with those of other species, it may be observed, that 

 E. buprestium is only a small tree with bark more like that of E. patens (the West-Australian 

 Blackbutt-tree), moreover its leaves are narrower, more prominently veined, of equal light-green 

 color and producing stomata in equal numbers on both sides, the lid is hemispheric and thus 

 shorter than the calyx-tube, the stamens are, on account of the shortness of the lid, while in bud, 

 quite turned downward, the fruits are larger, not rarely 4-celled and provided with only very short 

 or hardly any stalklets, their rim is descending and the orifice proportionately still more contracted. 



