88 



VARIETY. 



Var. eitriodora F.v.M. 



I have gone into the question of whether^, eitriodora is a variety of E. maculata 

 or not at pages 154, 155, 164, of Vol. I of my " Forest Flora of New South Wales." 



Mueller {Fragm. ii, 47) used the name E. eitriodora and so did Bentham (B.Fl. 

 iii, 257). The latter, by placing it between E. conjmbosa and E. tcrminalis , indeed he 

 says " evidently very closely allied to E. conjmbosa," did not realise its close affinity 

 to E. maculata, although he remarks, under E. eitriodora, " WooUs' Spotted Gum from 

 Parramatta [which is E. maculata— J .B.M.] is very much like E. eitriodora." Later, 

 Mueller (" Eucalyptographia," under E. maculata) thus speaks of it :— 



E. eitriodora can only be considered a variety of E. maculata, difieiing merely in the exquisite 

 lemon-scent of its leaves, and holding as a variety precisely the same position to E. maculata as Boronia 

 eitriodora to B. pinnata, or Thymus citriodorus to T. Serpyllum. Mr. Bailey, who had opportunities to 

 compare the two trees promiscuously growing, confirms their specific identity. 



Under the circumstances it seems proper to attribute the authorship of the 

 variety to Mueller. 



Mr. Bailey, in his " Queensland Flora," records it as E. macidata var eitriodora. 



I have occasionally crushed the young foliage of E. maculata and detected the 

 eitriodora perfume. This was the case in some specimens collected by Mr. J. L. Boorman 

 at Copmanhurst, Clarence River. 



Messrs. E. Schimmel & Co., Miltitz, Saxony, in " The Volatile Oils" (Gildemeister 

 and Hoffman, p. 536), describe the oil of E. macidata, and say that " it cannot be 

 distinguished from the following oi\{E. eitriodora)." See my " Forest Flora " i, p. 155. 

 This means that, while the oil of E. maculata is less in quantity, its composition is 

 similar to that of E. eitriodora. 



An adaptive character, like the presence of oil, cannot or should not in itself 

 be used for specific determination. 



That is the evidence. The two t^eQ& {maculata and its variety eitriodora) do no^^ 

 difier in important morphological characters (the young shoots of the latter are more 

 hairy, and perhaps the leaves are narrower and the buds less pointed, but these 

 differences do not amount to much), and their oils run into each other, the relative 

 proportion of Citronellal being vastly greater in the latter. Here, there seems to me, 

 is a case of a variety clearly enough, and as I think that the term variety is a useful 

 botanical designation, I employ it in the present instance. 



At the same time, the distiller and seller of oil (like the forester and gardener) 

 are not to be_ blamed if they choose the simple descriptive name " Eucalyptus eitriodora " 

 for the unwieldy one of " Eucalyptus maculata variety eitriodora." Although I would 

 much like to see trade names approximate to the botanical ones, ordinary people will 

 have to be more educated before they will accept ponderous names for everyday use. 

 The application of botanical names is subject to laws; trade names, which sometimes 

 simulate them, are not so controlled, and divergences between the two kinds of names 

 are sometimes inevitable. 



