19 



No. II. THE BARK. 



(Continued from p. 331, Part L.) 



Following is the remainder of my 1921 Classification. It will be seen that I have 

 adhered to Mueller's 1859 classification as closely as possible, but for the modifications 

 of it, and the species I have placed in the various groups, I am alone responsible : — 



1. LEIOPHLOLE (Smooth barks or gums). 



Mueller's original Group 1 indicated Gums or Smooth Gums. By " Yarra 

 trees " he meant E. rostrata. The reason why he stated " Blue Gum trees partim :: 

 and " Eed Gum trees partim " in his definition, was because he was aware that the 

 Gums had more or less hardy-flaky or even sub-fibrous bark up the butt. I have 

 below pointed out that a perfectly smooth Gum is an ideal, and, as regards these 

 roughnesses at the lower part of the butt, I have only considered it useful to pick out 

 the " W.A. Blackbutts " for special enumeration as such. This is but one indication 

 that the roughness may be very considerable in a Gum. 



The usual or most elementary kind of bark is the smooth one, called the '* Gum," 

 and it is more or less glaucous, and more or less thick ; we find this bark from the sandy 

 coastal flats to the bleak swamps and mountain areas and away to the arid interior, 

 e.g., White Gum (E. hcemastoma Sm.), Red Gum (E. rostrata Schlecht). In the interior 

 this is the prevalent kind of bark, with more or less (generally not very much) blackish 

 or hard scaly or flaky-fibrous bark at the butt. 



The term Gum is often used as if it were synonymous with Eucalyptus, but 

 this is by no means the case. It is usually only applied to species with barks smooth 

 or nearly so. As a matter of fact, the barks of very few indeed are quite smooth, most 

 species having more or less rough bark (usually hard-scaly or ribbony) at the butt. The 

 word Gum is usually prefixed by an adjective, which is not employed according to 

 a fixed rule. Thus, if the bark be white, the tree may be called White Gum (hcemastoma, 

 coriaeea) ; if the foliage be glaucous or blue, we have Blue Gum (globulus) ; if the bark 

 be, by comparison, bluish, we have also Blue Gum -(saligna) ; yet no timber is called 

 Red Gum because of the colour of its bark, but of its timber (rostrata, terctieornis); 

 while in Western Australia the Red Gum (calophylla) is so called because of neither 

 timber nor bark, but because of the profusion of kino which exudes. As a matter of 

 fact it would not in the eastern States be called Gum (certainly not Red), since it is a 

 rough-barked tree and has pale timber. It is, in fact, a Bloodwood. 



Some obvious character, such as Broad-leaved, Poplar-leaved, Narrow-leaved, 

 Lead-coloured, is occasionally prefixed to Gum, while to indicate softness or sappiness 

 of bark or timber, or perhaps of both, the prefix Cabbage is not rarely appbed (hcemastoma 

 var. micrantha, coriaeea). This by no means exhausts all the designations, for the 

 bushman feels himself at liberty to apply almost any prefix to a Gum (see the indexes 

 to the various volumes of the present work). 

 D 



