308 

 THE BARK. 



(Continued from p. 289, Part XLIX.) 



1. EARLY REFERENCES TO EUCALYPTUS BARKS, AND EARLY 

 EUCALYPTUS VERNACULARS IN GENERAL. 



The earliest reference to Eucalyptus trees in the field is by Banks in 1770 (Hooker's 

 " Journal of the Eight Hon. Sir Joseph Banks," 1896), but although he and Solander 

 observed them at both Botany Bay and Northern Queensland, their barks do not 

 appear to have attracted his attention. This is not to be surprised at, as, close to the 

 sea, they do not exhibit that degree of variation which is observed further inland. 

 Apart from that, his visit was but a flying one, with the nature of the country, its 

 aborigines, its fauna, its plants, all most puzzlingly strange. 



Mr. Caley [George Caley was in New South Wales from 1800 to 1810. — J.H.M.] has observed in the 

 limits of the colony of Port Jackson nearly fifty species of Eucalyptus, most of which are distinguished, 

 and have proper names applied to them, by the native inhabitants, who, from differences in the colour, 

 texture, and scaling of the bark [the italics are mine], and in the ramification and general appearance of 

 these trees, more readily distinguish them than botanists have as yet been able to do (Robert Brown 

 in Flinders' " Voyage to Terra Australis," ii, 515, 1814). 



In the same work (i, 18) Robert Brown had already stated — 



Of Eucalyptus alone nearly 100 species have been already observed ; most of these are trees, many 

 of them are great, and some of enormous dimensions. . . . 



But only fourteen species were known to science in 1814, and only six species 

 are referred to by Brown in his Collected Works (Ray Society). 



Hooker's Eulogium (Proc, Linn. Soc, 1888, pp. 56-7), says : — 



Now, Brown, in the appendix to Flinders' " Voyage " says that he collected nearly 4,000 species 

 (3,900) in Australia . . . The species were, in a great measure, at any rate, described as collected 

 in Australia itself, the descriptions were written out in the homeward voyage, and it only remained on 

 the return to England to complete the work. 



It seems impossible that he excluded the Eucalypts. I have referred to the 

 matter in my "' Sir Joseph Banks," p. 42. 



If Caley or Brown made notes on the bark, they have not been preserved (or 

 at all events, they have not been seen by an Australian speciahst in the genus) ; from 

 men of their powers of observation the notes could not fail to have been of interest. 

 The aborigines of the districts in which Caley worked are practically extinct now. 

 It is scarcely possible they abstained from making notes on such a difficult and 

 interesting subject. We know that Caley brought specimens of timbers to England 

 ("' A series of specimens of the native .woods collected in New Holland by the late Mr, 



