80 
men at Nornalup lias forty-five. This branching is characteristic 
of those plants growing' in swampy localities, the blackbovs of the 
dry hills and the sand plains having a simple or only slightly branch- 
ed eaudex. Branching* frequently takes place below the surface 
of the soil, so that what at first sight appears to be a colony of 
distinct blackbovs is really one plant arising from a common sub- 
terranean axis. In a typical specimen such as is met with round 
Perth on the laterite hills the stem is about nine feet in height, 
simple or with one or two branches, and about nine inches in dia- 
meter. On the coastal limestone belt amongst the tuart {Eucalyp- 
tus gomphocephotla) the diameter may lie much greater, up to 
15 inches, though the height is not proportionally greater. Here, 
too, the persistent leaf bases consist partly of the linear portion of 
the leaf as well as the flattened part, and part of the increased 
diameter is due to this. There seems to be no other distinguishing 
feature of this form to distinguish it from the typical black boy, but 
its general appearance is rather different. 
Very frequently specimens are acquiescent or nearly so, and the 
absence of the eaudex makes them appear more of the type of \. hre- 
rixtyla, n. sp. ['Examination, however, show’s no specific differences 
from V. Preissii. The extremely slow rate of growth of the black- 
hoy accounts for this, and for periods of years no stem appears 
above ground. Along* railway lines and in land which has been 
cleared for a long time and on which regrowth has taken place, 
these plants rarely attain a height of more than a foot or so. Speci- 
mens round Perth kept under observation for several years showed 
no appreciable change in height. Some of the giant specimens of 
the South-West must, therefore, be extremely ancient. 
The eaudex consists of two distinct zones, an inner core of 
fibrous leaf trace bundles, and an outer shell of persistent leaf 
bases impregnated with resin. The core contains a high percentage 
of sugar, and in the early days this was used in the preparation, 
of whisky*. The resin has been the subject of a great deal of in- 
vestigation, and Rennie, (broke & I inlay son of Adelaide, luvse re- 
cently obtained from it — 
(a.) A small quantity of fragrant liquid, not yet 
identified. 
(b.) 
(c.) 
(d.) 
(e.) 
(f.) 
1-cilronellol. 
paeonol. 
hydroxypaeonol. 
a compound, which is possibly methoxydiplienvl ether, 
u small quantity of a so far uncrvstallizable material of 
very high boiling point. 
* Rennie, Cooke it Fir Jayson *• _ An 
Xanthorrhoea. Journl, Chemical Society 
Investigation of the 
OXVil. (1920), 338. 
Resin from species of 
