232 



RANGE. 



So far as we know at present it has only been received from the Burnett River 

 district of Queensland. It was originally sent by Dr. T. L. Bancroft, its discoverer, 

 from Eidsvold, where it occurs on rocky mountainous country, associated with 

 E. sideropMoia. Mr. Forest Guard S. J. Higgins (sent by Mr. C. T. White), collected 

 it in the parish of Boondooma, but there is no doubt that, having been confused with 

 other Ironbarks, it has an extensive range. 



AFFINITIES. 



With E. drepanophylla F.v.M. 



In Journ. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., xlvii, 80, 1 considered E. decorticans to be specifically 

 identical with E. drepanophylla, but additional material has cau5ed me to form a 

 difEerent opinion. Phylogenetically, E. drepanophylla may be looked upon as a coarse 

 form of E. crebra, and most observers do not discriminate between those two species, 

 many of the references to E. crebra including E. drepanophylla. It is possible that 

 E. decorticans has, like E. drepanophylla, evolved from E. crebra. I attach great 

 importance to Dr. Bancroft's observations. He says E. decorticans is a denizen 

 of dry, rocky hillsides, while E. crebra grows on flatter country. E. decorticans 

 has a deciduous bark on the branches, and a poor timber, differing from E. crebra in 

 both these respects. 



The anthers of E. decorticans are semi-terminal, or approaching the group 

 provisionally termed Porantheroid ; those of E. drepanophylla are small, opening in 

 parallel slits, simulating those of E. crebra. 



Pa.rtly because of the narrowness of the juvenile leaves (borne out, I may say, 

 in the seedlings), I wrote to Dr. Bancroft about the relation of the new species 

 {decorticans) to the widely diffused E. crebra. He replied : " I am absolutely certain 

 that the sucker leaves are extremely narrow, more so a lot than those of E. crebra. 

 The new species and E. crebra do not grow together." In another letter he says that 

 they are as narrow as those of E. Seeana Maiden. See fig. la, Plate 132, Part xxxii, 

 of the present work. 



