DESCRIPTION. 



XLII. — E. bicolor, A. Ciinn. 



£. bicolot% A. Cunn., was iirst alluded to in a published work in the following 

 passage : — 



" B. bicolor, A. Cunn., MS., a species closely allied to E. hcemastoma, Sm., but the marginal nerve 

 is rot so close to the edge of the leaf (this is the ' Bastard Box ' of the carpenters)." — (Hooker in Mitchell's 

 "Journ. Trop. Australia" 390, 1848.) 



I have examined the following specimens : — ■ 



1. "Eucalyptus bicolor''' in A. Cunningham's handwriting, and bearing the 



label " New Holland, A. Cunningham, Hooker, 1835." This specimen was 

 given by Sir William Hooker to Bentham. 



2. E. bicolor, 1846. Sub-tropical New Holland, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. L. Mitchell. 

 The above are from Herb. Kew. A second sj)ecimen from Herb. Melb. of 

 No. 2, labelled " No. 446 of Nov. 1846." 



There are two specimens on one sheet in Herb. Cant, ex herb. Lindl., both 

 from sub-tropical New Holland, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. L. Mitchell, and both labelled 

 " E. bicolor, A. Cunn.," by Cunningham himself. One label carries the additional 

 information " No. 439, Nov. 20, 1846, ' Bastard Box of carpenters,' " and the other 

 " No. 614, Nov. 30, 1846, camp 86." 



Then comes Mueller's very full description of E. bicolor, A. Cunn., in Journ. 

 Linn. Soc. iii. 90 (1859), Mueller being then ignorant that E. bicolor, A. Cunn., 

 was a synonym of E. largiflorens, F.v.M., described in 1855. 



Bentham accepted E. bicolor, A. Cunn., as having priority, in B.Fl. iii, 214, 

 without comment, reducing E. largiflorens, F.v.M., to a synonym. 



Mueller's own quotation of the synonymy is intere.sting — (" Eucalypto- 

 graphia," under E. largiflorens, P.v.M.) : — 



"E. largiflorens, F.v.M. (1854); Fragnienta, ii. 58. E. penditla, A. Cunn., 

 in Steudel (1810) ; E. bicolor, A. Cunn., in Mitchell (1848)." 



He proceeds to say : — 



Preference is here given, in accordance with De Candolle's code, to the name under which this 

 species was first defined, and chosen as expressive of the exuberance of its flowers. Of neither of the 

 names bestowed by Allan Cunningham on this species, timely description was given ; the pendulous 

 branches suggesting the one name, and perhaps tlie sometimes but often pale colour of the filaments,* giving 

 rise to the other unless it was derived from the coloration of the bark. 



• See p. 312, Allan Cunningham's MS. Journal, under date 30th June, 1817. " We made the angle of a large deep 

 lagoon, of considerable depth, thinly dotted with trees, that had marks of inundation, about 4 feet above the present level 

 of water and a few inches above the general flatness of the plains. I here gathered specimens of a species of Eucalyptus 

 having a submucronated hemispherical operculum, and flowers in terminal panicles of two colours (red and white), a tree 

 of about 30 feet." 



And again, p. 318, 8th July, 1817. " Buried a bottle beneath a species of Eucalyptus (bko/or) near our tent." 

 Allan Cunningham, therefore, in his own manuscript named E. bicolor as far back as 1817, and explained the origin of 

 the name. He was then with Oxley on the lower Lachlan. 



