DESCRIPTION. 



CVI. E. gigantea Hook. f. 



In London Journal of Botany vi, 479 (1847). 



See also " The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage," Part iii, "Flora Tasmania?," 

 i, 136 (partim), with a plate (1860). 



I have copied out the original description, and also the amplified description 

 and the full text of Hooker's remarks at pp. 5S-9, Part II of this work, so they 

 need not he reproduced here. Attention may also he invited to my remarks on 

 & gigantea at p. 177, Part VI of this work. 



In Part li of my "Forest Flora of New South Wales," I have given 

 translations of the original description, and of that redescription which Hooker 

 gave in Ft. Tas. i, 136. 



The Plate 191 of Part li, has heen reproduced in its essential details from 

 Plate xxviii of Fl. Tas. Op. tit., I state that Hooker mixed two closely allied trees, 

 and it is better to disentaugle the confusion, making it clear what refers to E. gigantea 

 and what to E. obliqua (the species confused with it), than to perpetuate the 

 confusion by permitting botanists to continue to assume that one is a synonym of 

 the other, and to ignore Fitch's beautiful plate in Hooker's work. 



There is nothing new in rectifying a description ; the process is well known 

 to European and -American botanists. Coming to instances amongst Eucalypts, let 

 us take the case of E. resinifera Sm. The type does not exist, and the plate quoted 

 in White's " Voyage " shows a smooth bark. The name resinifera was used most 

 loosely in the early days, as any student of early botanical literature knows. It was 

 imagined to be the only "resin" (kino) producing species. Bentham, however, 

 compiled the description so as to apply to the tree known in Eastern Australia as 

 "Bed Mahogany," and this became the E. resinifera Sm. accordingly of aU 

 modern botanists. See my "Forest Flora of New South Wales," vol. i, pp. 04 and 

 65, for some references. 



Then E. piperita Sm. was looked upon as the species yielding Eucalyptus 

 oil. As a matter of fact, it is a rather unsatisfactory species for oil. Smith's 

 description of his species is not satisfactory (see vol. i, Part X, of the present work), 

 and so were his specimens ; but Bentham first properly defined the species. 



In Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., xxvi, 556 (1901), I have partly dealt with the 

 very great confusion that had gathered around E. Stuartiana F.v.M, which 

 originally was the so-called Bed Gum of Tasmania. In vol. ii, p. 14, 1 have shown 

 that quite a different tree to that now accepted as E hemiplrfoia F.v.M., was 

 originally described by Mueller under that name. 



