14 EUCALYPTS IN FLORIDA. 



make their home there, who suggested the possibility of growing 

 eucalypts, or planted them themselves. A number of individual 

 trees can be traced to some such source. 



In these desultory plantings there was haphazard selection of 

 species and sites, and no care whatever was given the young trees 

 after planting. The frost-sensitive E. robusta was planted as far 

 north as St. Augustine in a dry situation on filled-in or " made " land, 

 in spite of the fact that it is a tree which is especially well adapted 

 to low, swampy localities, as its common name " swamp mahogany " 

 indicates; and the extremely frost-sensitive E. citriodora was planted 

 as far north as Eustis. 



On Mr. Sams's place, Courtenay, Merritts Island, there is a very 

 good windbreak of E. resinifera. It consists of more than 200 

 trees planted in a single row along the side of an orange grove. The 

 trees were about 11 years old at the time of examination, in January, 

 1910, and measured from 12 to 21 inches in diameter, and from 45 to 

 65 feet in height. These trees were raised in a seed bed in the open, 

 from seed procured abroad. They seem to be well suited to the 

 locality and are now bearing seed in abundance. Seed from these 

 trees, germinated in a greenhouse at Washington, D. C, showed a 

 high vitality and produced healthy seedlings, which were distributed 

 for planting. (See PL I.) 



In July, 1909, the Florida East Coast Railway Co. made an experi- 

 mental plantation of about 3 acres near West Palm Beach, with a 

 view to growing eucalyptus for ties. The species planted were E. 

 globulus, robusta, rudis, and tereticornis. They were set out as seed- 

 lings when from 8 to 12 inches high, in a low, wet situation, in a fair 

 sandy soil which contained a high percentage of organic matter. 

 Shortly after planting the ground was overflowed to a depth of sev- 

 eral inches and remained under water for from six to eight weeks. In 

 January, 1910, all except E. globulus were doing well, and measured 

 from 3 to 4 feet in height. The lower 12 or 18 inches of the stems 

 had become lignified. The most damage had apparently been done 

 by wind and the mechanical beating of the rain, since many of the 

 young trees were bent over toward the southwest. The total failure 

 was less than 5 per cent of the original number planted. 



St. Augustine is the most northern point at which eucalypts were 

 found. Here there were only a few trees, and these were all of one 

 species, E. robusta. All of them have been frequently frozen back 

 and have made slow growth. Even farther south, at Eustis, where 

 many eucalypts had been planted as shade trees, some of the species 

 have been frozen back, notably E. citriodora; some species, however, 

 such as E. robust a, rostrata, and viminalis, have not been seriously 

 injured, though few of these antedate the frost of 1895. 



