419 



LXXXIV. E. cliptera Andrews. 



See Part XVI, p. 206, with Plate 71. 



Tins is another rare species which Mr. C. A. Gardner has rediscovered, and the folio whig 

 account of it is taken from Kessell and Gardner's " Key to the Eucalypts of Western 

 Australia," Forests Department, Western Australia, Bulletin No. 36 (1924), p. 39. 



E. diptera C. Andrews—" Bastard Gimlet," (1532, 5451). 



A small tree of 20 to 27 feet, with a slender trunk of 6 to 10 feet, fluted or angular, 

 and thin erect branches and reddish branchiets, trunk to 8 inches diameter. Bark 

 thin, brownish-green, or greenish-red, exactly similar to chat of the true Gimlet, 

 smooth throughout. Timber brown, rather pale, hard and dense, tough. Leaves 

 dark shining green, flowers greenish-yellow. 



Economic USCS.— Of no commercial use. 



Habitat. — Vicinity of Salmon Gums on the Esperance Bail way, northwards 

 to Gilmores and Lake View, in clay loam, on flats, in the Salmon Gum and Merrit or 

 Blackbutt forest. Flowering months, June-July. 



Botanical Characteristics. — The juvenile leaves are unknown at the time of 

 writing. M?ture leaves alternate, erect, on twisted, slightly flattened petioles, narrow- 

 lanceolate, thick and shining, 2| to 3h inches long and \ to \ inch wide, the same colour 

 on both sides, the midrib prominent with the thickened reddish margins, the secondary 

 veins inconspicuous, roughly parallel, with the intramargmal vein fairly close to the 

 edge. Flowers axillary or lateral in sessile clusters of two to three, usually rather 

 compressed laterally. Calyx-tube almost hemispherical but compressed, much flattened 

 in the lower portion, into a wing which continues longitudinally up the sides to form 

 two conspicuous wings. Operculum conical, compressed with two vertical acute angles 

 corresponding to the continuation of the vertical wings of the calyx-tube, about \ inch 

 long and acute, scarcely as broad as the calyx-tube, but more or less continuous with 

 it, and reddish-green contrasting with the green calyx-tube. Filaments lemon- 

 yellow, sharply inflected in the bud, nearly \ inch long, with oblong anthers opening 

 in longitudinal back-to-back cells. Ovary with a conical summit and thick calvate 

 green style. Fruit hemispherical, with the broad compressed base and vertical wings 

 of the calyx-tube continuing to the top, \ inch diameter without the wings, or sometimes 

 smaller — rather variable in size — and not quite the same length. Bim thick and broad, 

 the capsule slightly sunk, with three to six vahes, deltoid, and more or less flush with 

 the orifice, but sb'ghtly exserted. 



