PAR oll: 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GENUS EUCALYPTUS. 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
The genus Eucalyptus includes about 150 species. Most of them 
are trees of large size; some of them among the largest in the world. 
They range, however, from immense trees towering high on plains 
and hillsides down to small shrubs that cover desert or alpine regions. © 
They grow ina great variety of soils and climates, the various native 
environments having thus resulted in the development of species that 
are quite different from one another. In their native home they grow 
both scattered and in forests. | 
The Eucalypts are all evergreens, a fact that should be taken into 
consideration when planting them. 
Many of the species are vigorous growers, a few being asracials 
noted for the great rapidity of their growth. The Blue Gum (/uca- 
lyptus globulus) is one of the fastest growing of the genus. On the 
ranch of Hon. Ellwood Cooper, near Santa Barbara, Cal., trees of this 
species 25 years old are as large as oaks whose rings show them to be 
200 to 300 years old. As to their growth in France, Prof. Charles 
Naudin, in his memoir on Eucalyptus, published in 1891, says: 
In a score of years they (the Blue Gums) attain at least the volume and the height 
of an oak a century old. Some others, though not growing as rapidly, are moreover 
remarkable for the short time in which they may be used for carpentry, for joinery, 
for carriage making, for agricultural implements, for railroad velecners and for tele- 
graph poles. > 
It is this rapidity of growth, enabling them to reach the stature of 
trees in a few years, that has been the principal cause of the popularity 
of the Eucalypts where they have been introduced. 
Most species if pruned, or if cut off at the ground, sprout freely, 
sending up shoots that usually make a very vigorous growth. This 
makes it possible to cut the trees for fuel, for timber, or for other 
purposes, and in a comparatively short time to again have a forest 
containing as much timber as before the trees were cut. A Blue Gum 
(Hucalyptus globulus) 8 to 10 years old, if cut to the ground, will send 
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