AUSTRALIAN MELALEUCAS AND THEIR ESSENTIAL OILS. 115 
‘ON THE AUSTRALIAN MELALEUCAS AND THEIR 
ESSENTIAL OILS, Part VI. 
By R. T. BAKER and H. G. SMITH. 
With Plate I. 
[Read before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, August 2, 1922.] 
Introduction. 
The two species upon which this paper is founded are 
Melaleuca ericifolia, Sm. and M. Deanei, F.v.M., both 
‘being found in Hastern Australia. 
1, MELALEUCA ERICIFOLIA, Sm. 
Botany: 
This species was one of the first recorded from Australia 
being described by Dr. Smith in the Transactions of the 
Linnean Society, iii, 276, 1797, and a figure of it is given 
in Hxot. Bot. t. 34. The diagnosis of this plant in Bentham’s 
Flora Australiensis, Vol. III, p. 159, agrees very well with 
the botanical material upon which this paper is based, so 
that no description is here necessary. Bentham mentions 
a varietal form, viz.:—erubescens. 

The chemical results, however, were not obtained from 
this red flowered form, but the plant with white flowers. 
Geographical Distribution. 
It is one of the widest distributed species of the genus, 
as Bailey records it from Queensland in his Flora of that 
State; Mueller for South Australia in his Second Census, 
whilst Robert Brown, Mueller and J. D. Hooker record it 
for New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania respectively. 
Chemistry of Essential Oil. 
An essential oil was first distilled from the leaves and 
terminal branchlets of this Australian species of Melaleuca 
by Mr. J. Bosisto, (Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, July 1862). 
