EUCALYPTUS AMYGDALINA. 



V 



but also variable coloration of E. Eisdoni ; it is now also known from the sources of tbe Loddon 

 and Shoalhaven-Uiver. The unreliability of the cortical characteristics of E. amygdalina render 

 it sometimes difficult to distinguish this species from E. Sieberiana, especially in the absence of 

 flowers ; but that portion of the bark, which long persists, is not deeply farrowed, the wood is 

 more fissile, the leaves are more copiously dotted, the flowerstalks are not strongly compressed, 

 none of the stamens are sterile, and the fruit is less elongated. It differs from E. hsemastoma in 

 the veins of the leaves less spreading and less prominent, in thinner almost cylindric flowerstalks 

 and all the filaments provided with anthers, also in comparatively shorter fruit. The thick-leaved 

 varieties of E. amygdalina approach in many respects E. coccifera, but the lid of the calyx is not 

 remarkably depressed even in the Eisdonian variety, with which this shares the chalky bloom, the 

 tube of the calyx of the genuine E. amygdalina is never so long and not angular, the flowerstalks 

 are not so stout nor so flattened and the stalklets more slender. That form of E. amygdalina, 

 which produces fruits more contracted at the oriflce, bears so far much resemblance to E. piperita, 

 but the bark is less persistent and less stringy, the veins of the leaves are not so spreading, the 

 lid is never conical, the stalklets are generally longer and the fruits as a rule smaller. All the 

 other species of the section EenantherEe are more distinct. 



The number and distribution of the stomata are in this species subject to unusual variability, 

 explainable by the age of the tree and the open or shady position of its growth. 



This tree has a preference for the silurian formation and particularly for metamorphic schist, 

 as first traced by Mr. Howitt, at least in our uplands. 



E. amygdalina is one of the hardier of its congeners, and if E. coccifera constitutes an alpine 

 state of it, then it has in that remarkable form braved even unusually cold winters of Britain. 

 For instance at Powderham-Castle, the seat of the Earl of Devon, it passed unscathed throiigh an 

 ordeal of + 9° of Fahrenheit's scale while E. globulus was destroyed already at + 20° F. The 

 above noted severe cold caused to E. coccifera no injury whatever, so that perhaps that tree will 

 withstand a still somewhat lower temperature ; it produced in the subsequent summer thousands 

 of sprays of blossoms. Its height at Powderham-Castle was 58 feet, the stem measuring at 3^ 

 feet from the ground 7^ feet in circumference ; it grows there on sandy loam of rising ground. 

 (Powell, in the Gardener's Chronicle 1879, p. 113, with xylographic illustration.) 



It is the intention to give on a future occasion a schedule of exact measurements, clinome- 

 trically obtained, of the tallest individual trees anywhere to be found ; but it may for the present 

 suffice to observe, that approximate heights for this tree of 400 feet have been obtained by the 

 writer at the Black Spur and elsewhere on the Upper Yarra and Upper Goulburn-Eiver. Mr. D. 

 Boyle first of all ascertained the length of a fallen tree of this species, found by him in the 

 Dandenong-Eanges, at 420 feet ; the length of the stem up to the first branch being 295 feet, the 

 diameter of the stem at the commencement of the ramification proved 4 feet, 70 feet higher up the 

 diameter was still 3 feet, the top-portion was wanting. A still thicker tree there measured at 3 

 feet from the ground 53 feet in circumference. Mr. Boyle found another tree witli a stem 25 feet 

 in diameter at the base, yet the bark quite thin. Mr. Howitt obtained in Gippsland also measure- 

 ments up to 410 feet. Tlie Eev. Th. Ewing (as stated in lienfrey's Botanic Gazette) measured a 

 prostrate tree on a rill of the North- West Bay Eiver at the rear of Mount Wellington already 

 tliirty years ago and recorded the height up to the first branch 220 feet, from tlieiice to where the 

 top was broken off 64 feet more ; the basal diameter jiroved to be 30 feet, the stem-diameter at 

 220 feet was still 12 feet ! and to tljiit distance it would turn out already more timber tliaii three 



