EUCALYPTUS PLANCHONIANA. 



F. V. M., fragmenta phytographise Australise xi. 43 (1878). 



Branchlets very angular ; leaves scattered, sickleshaped-lanceolar, prolonged into a narrow- 

 apex, slightly less sbining beneath, not pellucid-dotted, with subtle much spreading not crowded 

 veins, the circumferential vein somewhat removed from the edge ; flowers 3-7 together on solitary 

 axillary broadly compressed stalks ; stalklets thick, very short or hardly any ; tube of the calyx 

 cylindrical-semiovate, furrowed ; lid from a semiovate base narrow-conical, about as long as the tube, 

 both longitudinally streaked ; stamens all fertile ; anthers ovate- or roundish-cordate, opening with 

 longitudinal slits ; style rather long ; stigma not dilated ; fruit comparatively large, globose-ovate, 

 truncated, 3-4-celled, streaked by angular lines ; their margin narrow, vertically descending; 

 valves short, deltoid, rather deeply enclosed ; seeds without any appendage, the sterile not much 

 smaller than the fertile seeds. 



On arid somewhat sandy or more particularly rocky ridges near Moreton-Bay (Bailey). 



Height of tree up to about 100 feet ; diameter of stem to 3 feet. Timber sound, heavy, hard 

 and durable, well adapted for sawing, but not easy to split. The foliage is massive and hence the 

 tree more shady than many other Eucalypts. (Bailey.) 



This species bears similarity chiefly to E. rigida var. Luehmanniana ; the latter differs 

 however in the whitish bloom of its branchlets, flowerstalks and calyces, in leaves of thicker 

 consistence with less divergent and more prominent veins, in the presence of stomata in about 

 equal number on both pages of the leaves (E. Planchoniana having them only on the underpage 

 and there more copiously too, about 165,000 to a square inch), in the rather shorter and still 

 broader flowerstalks, in somewhat shorter calyces with more pointed lids, in broader anthers with 

 more divergent slits and a smaller gland, in fruits of less size, not at all contracted at the summit, 

 with more numerous cells and a broad convex rim, in valves not deeply enclosed, but originating 

 at the orifice, and in the seeds being smaller. The affinity of E. incrassata is more remote. In 

 some respects E. Planchoniana reminds of E. pilularis, notwithstanding the much larger flowers 

 and fruits, the almost total absence of stalklets, the heartshaped anthers and the more prominent 

 rim of the fruit-calyx. 



The dedication of this stately sjDecies is to Dr. J. E. Planchon, Member of the Institute of 

 France, Director of the Botanic Garden of Montpellier, famed not only for his researches on the 

 Phylloxera, but also for his extensive phytologic writings, who was one of the first to cultivate 

 Eucalyptus globulus and other important congeners on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and 

 who wrote an important article on Eucalyptus-culture in the Revue des Deux-Mondes, Janvier 

 1875. 



With the quality of the wood of E. Planchoniana we remained hitherto unacquainted, but 

 doubtless it server for many of those technic purposes, for which the ordinary Australian Hard- 

 woods are applicable. In a Eeport on the Vegetable Products of the Intercolonial Exhibition of 

 1866-1867 I already recorded, that wood-vinegar, alcohol, and tar, are obtainable from all kinds 

 of Eucalyptus-wood (and indeed from any kind of wood) through dry distillation, hence also from 

 E. Planchoniana, though its timber may prove too valuable to be sacrificed for such purposes. 

 The percentage of these educts from Eucalypts is rather uniform, provided the temperature, at 

 which the decomposition of the wood is effected, remains at an uniform standard. It is therefore 

 not merely from E. rostrata, E. Leucoxylon and E. obliqua that tar is obtained, although these 

 species were among those, which I singled out for the experiments (conducted by Mr. C. Hoffmann 



