358 



3. The following are references to transverse venation : — 

 E. corymbosa — veins feathered, hardly evident. 



micraniha — -nerves confluent in front of the margin ; veins feathered. 

 fallens — feather-nerved, veins confluent in front of the margins. 

 obliqua — feather-nerved. 



4. The following refer to reticulate venation : — 

 E. elongata — reticulately veined. 



reticulata — reticulately veined beneath. 



5. The following are veinless, or nearly so : — 

 E. gomplwcephala — veinless. 



oblonga — veinless. 



virgata — nearly veinless. 



stricta — having the middle nerve hardly prominent, and the rest veinless. 



cneorifolia — the middle nerve is only prominent, or even evident (sic). 



ambigua — lateral veins hardly evident. 



C. Endlicher (1836-1840) " Genera Plantarum," speaks of Eucalyptus as " often 

 parallel-veined," whatever that may be. 



D. 1866. Bentham (B. Fl. iii, p. 185). "... the primary veins often scarcely perceptible when 

 the leaves are thick ; in some species few, irregular, oblique, and anastomosing and passing through every 

 qradation (the italics are mine. J.H.M.) from that to numerous parallel diverging or transverse veins, always 

 converging into the intramarginal vein, either close to or more or less distant from the edge, the intermediate 

 reticulate veinlets rarely very prominent, and scarcely any when the primary veins are closely parallel." 

 (p. 185). 



. . . So also in the venation, characteristic as it often is in the lanceolate leaves, the specific 

 modifications disappear in a great measure as the leaf gets broader, and it is only very rarely that there 

 are any appreciable specific differences in the venation of the sapling leaves " (p. 187). 



Then, coming to details, the descriptions of Bentham, one of the few 

 monographers of the genus, one of the most distinguished descriptive botanists of any 

 age, who had the collections of Mueller and of many other collectors and botanists 

 before him, demand especial respect. He described the leaves of over 130 species, and 

 found them to vary a good deal, as he has already indicated. 



It will be seen that Bentham's favourite description of the primary or lateral 

 veins is " obbque." In the 135 species he passes under review, he does not describe 

 the lateral veins in eighteen cases, those he omits having usually linear, or broadly 

 glaucous leaves. Of the remaining 117 he uses the term " oblique," in the case of 

 sixty-four species modifying it with "very " or " rather " in many instances. He 

 even uses the word " oblique " for stelhdatd and coriacea, though, in those cases supple- 

 menting it with a statement that the veins are almost parallel with the midrib. In 

 the case of E. obtusiflora he adds the words " and parallel." 



