EUCALYPTUS GAMOPHYLLA. 



R V. M., fragmenta pliytoKrapliise Australise xi. 40 (1878); Forrest's plants of North-Western Australia, p. 9 ; Tate, 

 in the transactions of the Philosophical Society of Adelaide 1880, p. 21. 



Shrubby ; branchlets slender, not angular ; leaves all opposite and broadly connate, equi- 

 lateral, from lanceolar- semielliptical to half-ovate or occa^onally almost cordate, of equal 

 whitish-grey or dull greenish color on both sides ; their primary veins very spreading and as 

 well as the veinlets rather prominent, the circumferential vein irregularly remote from the 

 margin ; oil-dots concealed or obliterated ; flowers in short panicles axillary and terminal or in 

 some of the axils only from few to two together, their stalks never much elongated, as well as the 

 usually very short stalklets thin and not conspicuously angular ; tube of the calyx from bell- 

 shaped- to cylindrical- semiovate, about three times as long as the depressed-hemispheric lid ; 

 stamens all fertile, inflexed before expansion ; anthers very minute, cordate- or ovate-roundish, 

 opening by longitudinal slits ; style very short ; stigma not dilated ; fruits truncate- or 

 cylindrical-ovate, not angular, the thin edge around the orifice turned slightly inward ; valves 

 3, less frequently 4, very short, inserted not far below the orifice, quite enclosed ; fertile seeds 

 along their three sharp longitudinal angles lined with a narrow membrane, very much larger than 

 the sterile seeds. 



On the Hammersley-Eange, ascending on Mount Pyrten to a height of 2,500 feet, J. Forrest ; 

 in the Glen of Palms, E. GUes ; between the Alice-Spring and Lady Charlotte's Water, C. Giles ; 

 on sand-hills near the Upper Finke-River and some of its tributaries, particularly Goyder's Creek, 

 Rev. H. Kempe. 



This remarkable species of Eucalyptus remains always shrubby in its growth. The foliage 

 and the fioral portion of the plant assume sometimes a chalky coloration, especially so the 

 branchlets, flowerstalks, stalklets and calyces ; sometimes however the whitish bloom is almost 

 entirely wanting, though neither leaves nor panicles become ever shining;. According to a note of 

 the Rev. H. Kempe the leaves also in aged plants are always connate into pairs ; but I observe 

 them in transmitted specimens occasionally severed to near their base, though on one side only. 

 Occasionally leaves occur twice as large as any illustrated in our lithographic plate. Flowers and 

 fruits are variable in size, but never large ; thus the calyces inclusive of their lid may be only 

 \ inch long when ready to burst into bloom, whereas the fruit-calyces may become elongated to 

 nearly f inch length ; their stalklets are from one to two lines long, rarely longer ; the filaments 

 are comparatively short and of the usual yellowish-white color of most congeners ; the fertile seeds 

 are rather dark-grey-brownish, twice or thrice as long as broad, measuring about 2 lines in 

 length, and are very much less in number and very remarkably larger than the always very 

 short light-brown sterile seeds. 



It is unnecessary to enter into a lengthy disposition of the differences, which mark E. 

 gamophylla in comparison to other species. The concrescence of the leaves by pairs in all 

 stages of growth occurs, so far as known, only in E. perfoliata, if even in that rare and little 

 known congener this coalescence should prove also unexceptional ; nevertheless it must be kept 

 in mind, that the Risdonian variety of E. amygdalina, and also E. uncinata or a closely allied 

 species, when in their stage of opposite leaves, occur also with some of them occasionally quite 

 grown together into one. Another remarkable distinctive character of E. gamophylla rests in the 

 extreme difference of the fertile and sterile seeds, and this finds to some extent its repetition only 

 in E. tetragona, which species shows also a form and structure of the fertile seeds similar to those 



