1626 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



doors in Europe at Camaldoli, near Naples, where the German gardener, Dehnhardt, 

 employed at the Naples Botanic Garden, published it as E. gigantea in 1832. The 

 tree, however, was only known as a curiosity, till Mueller sent large quantities of seed, 

 gathered at the base of Mount Butler in 1853, to nearly all the botanic gardens of 

 Europe. Probably from this seed, most of the earliest plants ^ were raised in Algeria, 

 where the blue gum produced flowers for the first time in 1863. M. Prosper Ramel 

 began in 1858 to extend the cultivation of this tree in the south of France, receiving 

 large quantities of seed from Mueller. 



The well-known plantations in the Campagna near Rome were commenced in 

 1879 by the Trappist monks of Tre Fontana, who received the first seed in that 

 year from Mueller, through Dr. Goold, R.C. Archbishop of Melbourne. The blue 

 gum was introduced in 1865 into Spain, where it became known as the fever tree, 

 because it was believed in Spain, as in Italy, " to purify marshy regions that engender 

 fever." The tree is also largely planted in the Nilgiri hills in India, where it is said 

 to have been introduced as early as 1843. According to Mr. M'Clatchie, it was the 

 first species of Eucalyptus planted in California, and the one that has been most 

 successfully grown. The date of introduction there appears to have been 1856, 

 when Mr. Walker planted fourteen species ; but the cultivation of Eucalypti on a 

 large scale in California is due to Mr. Nolan, a nurseryman of Oakland, who received 

 a large supply of seed of several species from Australia in 1861. It is commonly 

 planted in Chile, where in some parts of the country it has attained a great size, 

 and is an important timber and shade tree. 



With regard to the growth of the blue gum in foreign countries, Mueller 

 states,^ that a tree at Gaeta, planted in 1854, was 100 ft. high and 11 ft, in girth at 

 the base in 1878. Dr. W. von Hamm of Vienna saw larger trees on Lake Maggiore, 

 one^ of which, supposed to be twenty-eight years old, was 120 ft. high in 1878. At 

 Hyeres, a tree raised from seed in 1857, had attained in 1875 a height of 67 feet with 

 a girth of 7 ft. near the base. Farther south, the growth is still more rapid, a tree 

 at Malaga having attained 65 feet in six years. The greatest rapidity of growth 

 occurs at considerable altitudes on the mountains of the tropics, where the climate is 

 temperate and equable, combined with continuous humidity of the atmosphere. At 

 Arambi, near Ootacamund in the Nilgiris in India, the blue gum attains a height of 

 107 ft. in nineteen years, and yields 8696 cubic feet per acre, equal to 457 cubic feet 

 annually per acre at 7426 feet above sea-level in lat. 11° N.* In California, according 

 to M'Clatchie,'' trees about thirty years old have attained 150 ft. in height and 3 to 

 6 ft. in diameter. He gives a plate of an avenue at Santa Barbara, where the trees, 

 planted thirty years ago, range from 3 to 5 ft. in diameter. M'Clatchie also says there 

 are many instances of blue gums attaining 50 to 75 ft. in from five to ten years ; and 

 adds that it is without doubt the fastest-growing tree in the world.* 



^ Planchon, according to Mueller, states that the first plants in Algeria were raised in 1854, from seed sent by the Jardin 

 des Plantes, Paris, which may have come from Hobart direct. 



2 Eucalyptographia, dec. vi. (1880). ' We are unaware of the existence of any such trees now. 



* Sir D. Brandis, quoted in Kew Bull. 1895, p. 3. * Eucalypts cultivated in the U.S. p. 61, fig. 21 (1902). 



' Ingham, in Agric. Exp. Stn. Berkeley, Calif., Bull. No. 196, p. 77 (1908), gives equally remarkable records ; a planta- 

 tion of 319 trees, set out 8 ft. apart on medium loam at Vacaville, averaged, at twenty-five years old, 12$ ft. high and 14^ in. 

 in diameter at breast height. 



