PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. S3 



tree of the last mentioned species, the fibrous-barked 

 Eucalypt is unknown in the Jnterior. This distribution is 

 of great interest and appears to be in response to climatic 

 conditions. A second form of fibrous bark which is less 

 stringy than the typical Stringybarks, and usually of a 

 grey colour, is known as Peppermint-bark from the fact 

 that the species on which it grows possess leaves which 

 emit a strong odour of peppermint when crushed. The 

 Peppermint group, of which E. dives, Andreivsi, amyg- 

 dalina, and piperita are typical, belongs chiefly to the 

 Mountain Region, and occurs also in the Coastal Area, 

 but is absent from both the Western Slopes and the 

 Interior, in fact, to an observer descending the western 

 side of the mountains, the presence of the Peppermints is 

 evidence that cool conditions have not yet been left behind, 

 while the occurrence of the Box-trees denotes that the 

 country below the margin of the winter snow has been 

 reached, and that fairly warm and comparatively dry con- 

 ditions prevail. Three of the typical Peppermints, viz., 

 E. dives, amygdalina and Andrewsi rarely if ever descend 

 below an altitude of 2,000 feet in latitudes north of 35°, so 

 that it seems probable that prior to the great uplift in 

 the Kosciusko period, these species, in their present state 

 of development did not exist in New South Wales except 

 perhaps in the extreme south, and this latter possibility 

 could apparently only apply to the first two. 



Furrowed Barks. — The hard furrowed-barked trees of 

 which the Ironbarks, E. crebra and E. sideroxylon may 

 be regarded as types, are most numerous in the Coastal 

 Area, and next to that, on the Western Slopes, being prac- 

 tically unknown in the Mountain Region above an altitude 

 of 3,000 feet. It seems curious that the one condition 

 these hard-timbered thick-barked Eucalypts avoid more 

 than any other, is the cold. One species with equally 



C— May 7, 1913. 



