II HOBART AND THE MIDLANDS 41 



in the size of the leaves, the character of the 

 flower and fruit and of the bark. Naturally of 

 a graceful shape, with the leaves forming dense 

 mops at the ends of the branches, the Eucalypts 

 are apt, especially in dry localities, to become 

 thin and scraggy owing to the quantity of dead 

 wood that they carry ; it appears indeed a general 

 adaptation of these trees to let the greater quantity 

 of the boughs die and to carry on life economically 

 with a few live branches. All the Tasmanian 

 Eucalypts have white or yellowish flowers ; the 

 leaves are of a dull bluish-green and droop ver- 

 tically downwards, usually with the thin edge of 

 the leaf turned towards the sun. The dull colora- 

 tion of the foliage applies not only to the Euca- 

 lyptus, but to all Australian trees ; they are all 

 with very few exceptions non-deciduous, and 

 having to carry their leaves all the year round 

 in a climate which is for the most part dry and 

 parched, the foliage is dull and waxy and takes 

 on all those xerophytic characters intended to 

 prevent a too rapid transpiration of the moisture. 



The flowers of the Eucalypts, which are very 

 sweet-smelling and attract by their honey swarms 

 of insects and honey-eating birds, form dense 

 clusters of feathery spikes in the form of bottle- 

 brushes. The form of the Eucalypt flower is well 

 shown in Fig, 13, p. 55, which represents not 

 an actual Eucalypt, but a closely related low- 

 growing shrub {CalUstemon), very common in the 

 undergrowth of the gum forests. 



