EUCALYPTUS AMYGDALINA. 



Mons. P. Eamel, Mons. A. Thozet, the writer and many others have early drawn public 

 attention to the importance of these trees for subduing malaria, after incidentally the febrifugal 

 properties of the Eucalypts had been discovered first by Spanish physicians in 1866 and been 

 confirmed soon subsequently by medical men in France and Italy, to whom the opportunities for 

 hygienic researches of this kind much more readily arose than to us here, in places where 

 periodically or even continuously malarian fevers were raging, and where these, so soon as 

 Eucalyj)tus-vegetation copiously arose (and this often through the instrumentality of the writer) 

 the disease was suddenly or gradually checked, mostly even without recurrence. The powerful 

 disinfecting action of the oily volatile emanations of the Eucalypts are mainly due to the evolution 

 of Ozone and double oxyd of Hydrogen, as shown by experiments of Dr. Andrews and Dr. Gr. Day. 

 But irrespective of this the power of also this Eucalypt to absorb moisture from the ground is 

 enormous and of vast hygienic significance, and stands in proportion to the intensity of the 

 aqueous exlialation, in which latter respect many Eucalypts vastly surpass Elms, Oaks, Poplars 

 and many other trees. (See my lecture on " Forest-culture in relation to Industrial Pursuits " &c., 

 Ellwood Cooper's edition p. 99.) The gradually dropping foliage, unlike that of most other trees, 

 acts also deodorizing on the soil. Sir Will. Macarthur alluded likewise early to the healthiness 

 of Eucalyptus-regions. 



Again quite recently Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy once more insisted, as was done by us here 

 many years ago, that to E. amygdalina preference should be given over any other congener for 

 plantations in any paludal fever-regions, wherever climatic circumstances would allow it to 

 prosper, although this species grows not with quite the rapidity of E. globulus, nor accommodates 

 itself with the same facility to a great diversity of soils. At Lago Maggiore, where Prince 

 Troubetzkoy instituted his observations, B. amygdalina grew 60 feet in nine years, and endured 

 a temperature sinking occasionally as low as 18* F., proving hardier than E. globulus and 

 E. rostrata. See Bulletin de la Soci6t6 d'Acclimatation, Paris, 1879, pp. 338-342, in which 

 important journal the culture of Eucalyptus has been strenuously advocated by M. Ramel and 

 numerous other writers ever since 1858. See also Count Luigi Torelli's Memoir " I'Eucalyptus e 

 Roma" 1879, pp. 48-49. 



Dr. Josef Moeller of Vienna describes the wood of B. amygdalina anatomically in nearly the 

 following words (translated) : — The vascular tubes are always isolated and irregularly scattered in 

 scanty number ; their lumen ex.ceeds rarely 0-06 mm. ; their walls are but slightly thickened and 

 are seriated-dotted ; parenchyma is only scantily developed ; the woody fibres are also dotted, at 

 an average 0'012 mm. broad, of which two-thirds pertain to the lumen ; their contours are uneven ; 

 the medullary rays consist of one or two rows of cells, not rarely cubical and rather broad about 

 0-024 mm. 



The form of the expanded cotyledonar leaves is characteristic to some extent for various 

 Eucalypts ; in E. amygdalina they are ovate-kidney shaped and tapering into short stalklets, 

 whereas some other species, for instance E. cornuta, have them deeply cleft into two narrow 

 divergent lobes. 



Explanation of Analytic Details. — 1, unexpanded flower, the lid partly lifted ; 2, longitudinal section of 

 an unexpanded flower ; 3, some stamens in situ ; 4-5, back- and front-view of a stamen witli part of its filament ; 

 6, style and stigma ; 7 and 8, transverse and longitudinal section of fruits ; 9 and 10, fertile and sterile seeds ; 

 11, portion of a leaf; 12, vascular, prosenchymatous and parenchymatous elements of wood ; all magnified to various 

 extent, fig. 12 as much as 220 times diametrically. 



