173 



His remarks are very trenchant in regard to nomenclature based on leaves, 

 and the deductions which have been made on such scientifically incomplete material. 

 I sympathise with him, and while I think that most of the conclusions to which he 

 refers were wrong, knowledge has been advanced by stating the case as Ettingshausen 

 and others have stated it, particularly when good, if scanty, figures have been employed. 

 We have thus been favoured with the other side of the case, and can conveniently 

 refer to statements in discussions since they have been admirably presented. 



This imposition on the impression of the leaf of a bigger burden than we believe 

 it can bear, is a passing phase, or " cult," and has been by no means a useless one. 



Cambage, 1913. — Mr. R. H. Cambage, in his presidential address (Proc. Roy. 



Soc. N.S.W., xlvii, 48, 1913), has some observations on " Fossil (Eucalyptus) Leaves." 



He, for the first time, groups these fossils according to their venation, as had been 



already done with living forms, viz., oblique, transverse, &c, with all the disadvantages 



of the imperfect venation we see in the fossils themselves, and the somewhat 



diagrammatic venation as indicated in some of the drawings of them. This phase of 



the subject will be better understood when I arrive at the general question of Eucalyptus 



leaves and their venation in a subsequent Part of the present work. He says : — ■ 



Of the fossil leaves which have been identified, as Eucalypts in Miocene deposits in South-eastern 

 Australia, some, are considered to possibly belong to other genera, but those recorded as Eucalypts are 

 distributed aomewhat as follows: — Those showing the transverse venation have been recorded from Oxley, 

 near Brisbane,* in latitude 27 J deg. to Tasmania, and those with the oblique venation, from northern New 

 South Wales to southern Victoria, though one or two of the Brisbane specimens show the beginning of the 

 latter venation. A typical form of the oblique venation, E. Pbiti McCoy, has been found near Daylesford, 

 in Victoria, in Miocene beds. 



Mr. H. Deane has described what he regards as probably a Eucalyptus fossil, from a specimen 

 discovered at Mornington, towards the extreme south of Victoria, under the name of E. prmcoriacea 

 (below, see p. 187). It has the parallel venation of the living E. coriacea, but also much resembles a 

 phyllodineous Acacia or a Halcea, as suggested by Mr. Deane. The same author has also described several 

 species from the fossil flora of Berwick in about latitude 38 deg., but these belong chiefly to the section 

 which has leaves with the early oblique venation, the lateral veins being usually arranged in these specimens 

 at angles of from 40 to 65 deg., or rarely 70 deg. with the midrib. The Mornington and Berwick beds are 

 doubtfully referred to the Eocene period.f 



Mr. F. Chapman, in writing of some fossils of probably Janjukian or Miocene age, fromWannon 

 Falls, Redruth, Western Victoria, says, "Several fragments of long, ovate, pointed leaves, can without 

 doubt be referred to the genus Eucalyptus. Thei- venation differs from those of the fossil species described 

 by McCoy and Ettingshausen in having remarkably long and subparallel veins; and very closely agree 

 with the leaves of E. amygdalina."j. 



If the extreme or parallel type of venation had been evolved in Eocene or early Miocene time, then 

 it would seem not unlikely that the genus originated as far back as towards the close of the Cretaceous, 

 though its occurrence in Europe in Cretaceous or Tertiary time seems most improbable, as already pointed 

 out by Mr. Deane {op. cit., p. 463, ante, p. 172). 



Mr. R. M. Johnston has described two species of Eucalyptus from fossil leaves found in Tasmania, 

 one, E. Kayseri from Mount Bischoff, and the other, E. Milligani, probably from Macquarie Harbour 

 {infra, see pp. 176 and 177). From the drawings, these both belong to the transverse venation type, and 

 this implies that Eucalypts, having leaves with this class of venation, had extended south to latitude 42 deg. 

 in Eocene or Miocene time, or about 4 degrees beyond where living examples of this type are found to-day. 



* Baron von Ettingshausen, Denks. K. Akad. Wisscn, Wien., Math.-Naturw. CI. Ixii, p. 48 (1S95). 

 t A. E. Kitson, Rec. Gcol. Sun: Victoria, 1902, p. 52. I Proc. Roy. Soc, Victoria, 1910, p. 25. 



