46 



PAXTON'S FLO WEE GARDEN. 



Cowthorpe, in Yorkshire, which is 48 feet in circumference at three feet from the ground. Some hollow pollard oaks are 

 larger, such as the Winfarthing, in Norfolk, which is 70 feet at the ground. The second tree, also a swamp gum, is prostrate. 

 It measures, from the root to the first branch, 220 feet, and the top measures 64— in all 284 feet, without including the 

 small top, decayed and gone, which would carry it much beyond 300 feet. The circumference at the base is 36 feet, and 

 at the first branch 12 feet, giving an average of 24 feet. This would allow for the solid bole, 10,120 feet of timber, 

 without including any of the branches. Altogether, as green timber, it must have weighed more than 400 tons. The 

 oak that gave the most timber was the Gelonos oak, in Monmouthshire, which, with its branches, turned out 2426 feet, 

 but the body alone only 450 feet, * * * * . — Believe me, yours very truly, 



" ' Thomas J. Ewingf. 



"His Excellency the President mentioned his having strongly recommended to the Right Hon. the Secretary of 

 State for the Colonies, and to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the timber of our Blue Gum {Eucalyptus globulus). 

 Plank can be obtained from it in lengths surpassing those of any other timber tree ; and it may be sent borne and sold 

 at 8<£ per foot, while oak plank (to which it is not inferior in quality), of the largest obtainable lengths, costs 2s. 6d. per 

 foot." 



Similar, although less striking, accounts of these gum trees are given by Mr. James Backhouse in his " Journal of a 

 Visit to the Australian Colonies," as will be seen by the following extracts : — 



" On an old road, called the Lopham Road, a few miles from the Bay, we measured some stringy bark {Eucalyptus 

 robusla) trees, taking their circumference at about five feet from the ground. One of these, which was rather hollow at the 

 bottom and broken at the top, was 49 feet round ; another that was solid, and supposed to be 200 feet high, was 41 feet 

 round ; and a third, supposed to be 250 feet high, was 55| feet round— as this tree spread much at the base, it would 

 be nearly 70 feet in circumference at the surface of the ground. My companions spoke to each other when at the 

 opposite side of this tree to myself, and their voices sounded so distant, that I concluded they had inadvertently left me to 

 see some other object, and immediately called to them. They, in answer, remarked the distant sound of my voice, and 

 inquired if I were behind the tree !" (P. 115.) 



" In company with J. Milligan and Henry Stephenson, a servant of the company, from near Richmond in Yorkshire, 

 we visited a place in the forest remarkable for an assemblage of gigantic stringy barks, and not far from the junction ol 

 the Emu River with the Loudwater, the latter of which takes its name from three falls over basaltic rock at short 

 intervals, the highest of which is 1 7 feet. Within half a mile we measured standing trees as follows, at four feet from 

 the ground. Several of them had one large excrescence at the base, and one or more far up the trunk : — No. 1, 45 feet- 

 in circumference, supposed height 180 feet ; the top was broken, as is the case with most large-trunked trees ; the trunk 

 was a little injured by decay, but not hollow. This tree had an excrescence at the base, 12 feet across, and 6 feet high, 

 protruding about 3 feet. No. 2, 374 feet in circumference ; tubercled. No. 3, 35 feet in circumference ; distant from 

 No. 2 about eighty yards. No. 4, 38 feet in circumference; distant from No. 3 about fifty yards. No. 5, 28 feet in 

 circumference. No. 6, 30 feet in circumference. No. 7, 32 feet in circumference. No. 8, 55 feet in circumference ; 

 supposed to be upwards of 200 feet high ; very little injured by decay ; it carried up its breadth much better than the 

 large trees on the Lopham Road, and did not spread so much at the base. No. 9, 40£ feet in circumference ; sound and 

 tall. No. 10, 48 feet in circumference ; tubercled, tall, with some cavities at the base, and much of the top gone. 



"A prostrate tree near to No. 1, was 35 feet in circumference at the base, 22 feet at 66 feet up, 1 9 feet at 1 1 0 feet up ; 

 there were two large branches at 120 feet ; the general head branched off at 150 feet ; the elevation of the tree, trace- 

 able by the branches on the ground, was 213 feet. We ascended this tree on an inclined plane formed by one of its limbs 

 and walked four abreast with ease upon its trunk I In its fall it had overtoned another, 168 feet high, which had brought 

 up with its roots a ball of earth 20 feet across. It was so much imbedded in the earth that I could not get a string round 

 it to measure its girth. This is often the case with fallen trees. On our return, I measured two stringy barks, near the 

 houses at the Hampshire Hills, that had been felled for splitting into rails, each 180 feet long. Near to these, is a tree 

 that has been felled, which is so large that it could not be cut into lengths for splitting, and a shed has been erected 

 against it ; the tree serving for the back 1 (P. 121.) 



As we have already observed, there seems to be no reason why these prodigious trees should not, at some future day, 

 decorate the scenery of Great Britain. Devonshire and Cornwall, or Cork and Kerry, would certainly prove capable of 

 bringing them to maturity. [This supposition is now disproved.] 



Hebeclinium ianthinum. Hooker {alias Conoclinium ianthinum_, Morren. See Vol. L t 

 p. 113). 



Sir W. Hooker is of opinion that this plant should be referred to the genus Hebeclinium, rather than to Conoclinium, 

 and that it is a close congener of Hebeclinium macrophyllum, a common plant of Jamaica, belonging to the first section 

 of De Candolle. "Asa species," he adds, the " plaut differs abundantly in its large purple flowers and in the cuneate base 

 to the leaf. It flowers in the winter months with us, and is then very ornamental. An herbaceous rather than a 

 shi'ubby plant. Stem and branches terete, clothed with rusty down. Leaves opposite, on very long petioles, often a 

 span long, ovate, but decidedly cuneate and entire at the base, very acute rather than acuminate, coarsely and ofteD 



