EUCALYPTUS DECIPIENS. 



Elndlioher in Huegel enumeratio plantarum Novae HoUandiEB austro-oocidentalis 49 (1837) ; Schauer in Lehraann plantse 

 Preissianse i. 129 ; Bentham, flora Australiensis iii. 218 ; F. v. M., Report on the forest-resources of Western 

 Australia 11, pi. 10. 



Finally tall ; leaves scattered, from broad- to narrow-lanceolar, or sometimes verging into an 

 oval form, dull-green on both sides ; their lateral veins subtle, considerably divergent, not very 

 close, the circumferential vein somewhat distant from the edge of the leaf ; oil-dots mostly con- 

 cealed ; flowers axillary^ from jive to fifteen crowded on a short stalk without separate stalklets ; 

 tube of the calyx almost hemispheric or semiovate, not angular, as long as or shorter than the 

 broad-conical lid ; stamens all fertile and inflexed before expansion ; anthers roundish or somewhat 

 renate, opening by short broad marginal slits ; stigma not broader than the summit of the style ; 

 fruits small, semiovate or hemispheric or truncate-globular, their rim depressed and comparatively 

 broad ; valves three or four, emersed, upwards awlshaped ; fertile seeds much larger than the 

 sterile narrow seeds, all without any appendage. 



From the vicinity of Swan-Eiver to near Cape Riche so far as known, particularly along 

 water-courses and on river-flats, but occasionally also on calcareous ridges. 



One of the " Flooded Gum-trees " of West-Australia. 



A tree attaining a height of 70 feet, in unsheltered localities of dwarf growth, flowering 

 already in a shrubby state. Bark persistent, rough, fragile, rather soft. Leaves not very long. 

 Filaments cream-colored. Anthers of some of the outer stamens occasionally broad-kidneyshaped. 



The timber of this Eucalyptus is very little known, and seemingly not of any leading value. 



The species approaches E. oleosa ; but the flowers are crowded without stalklets on the 

 common stalks, the anthers are broader and open with more porelike slits, and the fruii^valves 

 are totally emersed, arising from a broader rim ; moreover this species is often much taller. 



Although E. decipiens may not be a species prominently eligible for forest-culture, yet to offer 

 some notes on the rearing of other congeners may here not be out of place. The experiences in 

 raising Eucalypts on a very extensive scale for forestry-purposes have been larger in South- 

 Australia than in any other portion of this part of the world ; accordingly the able and zealous 

 conservator of the forests in that colony, J. E. Brown, Esq., has issued in 1881 a " practical 

 treatise on tree-culture," in which important publication his modes of raising Eucalypts are 

 particularly detailed. Here it may also be incidentally remarked, that the credit of establishing 

 by special acts of Parliament the first fully organized Foresi^Department in Australia is due to 

 Honorable Fred. Krichauff of Adelaide, an University-friend of the author of the present work, 

 on whose first urging in 1871 Mr. Krichauff initiated legislative measures, primarily to encourage 

 tree-culture and subsequently to elaborate his effectual forest-bill, based largely on a Eeport by 

 the Hon. the Commissioner of Crown Lands of South Australia, G. M. Goyder, by which means 

 now already under Mr. Brown's far-reaching administration remunerative results are obtained. 

 The importance of forestry for Australia was pointed out also in various writings of the 

 Government Botanist of Victoria for more than twenty years, notably and extensively in his essay 

 " Fores1>Culture in relation to industrial pursuits" 1871. To pave practically the way for 

 forestry, he distributed also from 1858 to 1873 several hundred thousands of various kinds of 

 trees, including many species of Eucalypts, throughout the settlements of Victoria, in specimens 

 reared by himself, not rarely the first of their kinds ever raised in Australia. As regards rearing 

 Eucalypts for large forest-plantations, three or four modes can be adopted, concerning each of 

 which Mr. Brown gives his experiences, to which the author's own are added : — 



