EUCALYPTUS OLDFIELDII. 



F. T. M., fragmenta phytographias Australise ii. 37 (1860) ; Bentham, flora Australiensis iii. 237. 



Sbrubby ; leaves scattered, on rather long stalks, ovate- or narrow-lanceolar, hardly or 

 slightly curved, of thick consistence and of equal color on both sides ; their veins very subtle, 

 rather close, moderately spreading, the circumferential vein slightly removed from the edge of the 

 leaf ; oil-dots concealed or obliterated ; flowers 3 or sometimes 2 together on axillary solitary 

 mostly short stalks and provided with only exceedingly short or no stalklets ; lid hemispherical, 

 shortly protracted at the summit, of thick consistence, hardly longer than the semigiobular 

 not angular tube of the calyx ; outer stamens not inflexed before expansion, inner stamens 

 only slightly bent inward while in bud, all fertile ; anthers globular-cordate, opening by wide 

 longitudinal slits ; stigma not expanded ; lower half of the ripe fruit depressed-hemispherical, 

 upper half consisting of the very broad convex rim and the three to four deltoid-pointed perfectly 

 exserted valves; the fertile seeds imperfectly and quite narrowly membraneous at the margin, 

 larger than the partly narrow sterile seeds. 



From Champion-Bay (Walcott) to the Murchison-River (Oldfield). 



A shrub, attaining (so far as we know) about 10 feet in height. Young branchlets angular. 

 Leaves from 2-| to 6 inches long, about the middle \iQ\\ inches broad, smooth and somewhat 

 shining, pale-green. Flowerstalks J to ^ inch long, not flattened. Stalklets \ inch or less long 

 or quite obliterated. Lid somewhat woody, very thick for its size. Filaments, as far as seen, only 

 about \\ to 3 lines long, seemingly of a yellowish or reddish color. Anther-cells separated by the 

 narrow but distinct connective. Young fruit rather sharply edged, the discal rim of it then 

 somewhat concave and rising into a ring around the pyramidally connivent valves ; ripe fruit from 

 scarcely \ inch to over J of an inch in diameter, smooth below, the rim next to the valves narrowly 

 depressed ; valves pointed or simply acute. Eipe fertile seeds black, scarcely above 1 line long ; 

 sterile seeds unequal in size. 



The form of the fruit already characterises well this Eucalypt. The leaves and anthers bring 

 it into the vicinity of E. oleosa and E. pachyphylla, while the stamens as regards their early 

 position indicate an affinity to E. gomphocephala and also E. pacbyloma. Bentham placed it 

 next the last-mentioned species, from which it is decisively distinguished by longer leafstalks, by 

 broader leaves with more divergent veins, shorter stamens, anthers of different structure, somewhat 

 larger more depressed fruits with prominent margin, longer valves protruding j)yramidally from 

 a central groove of the vertex and also narrower sterile seeds, the anthers and fruits (with their 

 seeds) of E. pachyloma resembling much more those of E. macrorrhyncha and E. capitellata. 

 For although Bentham puts his E. pachyloma in the series of Normales (Parallelantheras), 

 it belongs in reality to the Eenantheras, notwithstanding the lesser divergence of the anther-cells, 

 because the anthers are heartshaped, not at all ovate, their slits are convergent and fully joined 

 at the summit, the connective is obliterated in front, so as to render the anther-cells there 

 completely contiguous, and the seeds are nearly uniform in size, which all is quite characteristic 

 of Renantherse. Lideed E. pachyloma seems reducible to the true shrubby E. santalifolia, 

 having precisely the same anthers also, and it would therefore be one of those species of the desert 

 (E. incrassata, E. oleosa, E. uncinata, E. gracilis), which verge from the depressed arid inland- 

 regions of South-Eastern Australia quite to the south-western coast. In the shape of its anthers 

 E. Oldfieldii agrees almost with that variety of E. incrassata, in wliich they are shortened to a 



