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said this tree never grows in South Africa from the seed drop- 
ping in a natural way ; it must be gathered and sown, and when 
planted out must be put in the same kind of locality in which 
it grew in the seed-bed.” 
In a photograph of Pieter-Marifczburg before me it is easy to 
distinguish the young Eucalyptus trees from the peach and other 
trees growing so plentifully around the snug-looking settlers’ 
houses. They shoot upwards, like the cypress, with a slender 
stem, and in the photograph have a curiously artificial look. 
The weird majesty of a Eucalyptus in its native land is glow- 
ingly described by the accomplished authors of “What we 
Saw in Australia.” They found in South Australia little 
variety of foliage except the gum trees, red, white, and blue ; 
these, however, vary so much in different periods of growth, 
in different positions, and under different lights, that they pro- 
duce very nearly the effect of stone pines, firs, elms, oaks, and 
especially willows. Isolated trees are found as handsome in 
form as our finest oaks and elms, which look dwarfed by their 
side. When an enclosure is cleared the trees are “ ringed,” 
i.e., stripped of their bark, in order to facilitate decay, and the 
aspect then presented by them is sombre in the extreme. “We 
often,” write our authors, “ passed these strange plantations ; 
and if there chanced to be a leaden sky, throwing the skeleton- 
like branches into strong relief, or a heavy rain blurring and 
blotting out the gaunt outlines, it was difficult not to believe 
that we were among beings of another world.” The blue gum, or 
E. globulus , is not yet abundant in South Australia. The red 
gum tree makes excellent fuel ; the white burns, but gives little 
heat. 
The genus Eucalyptus belongs to the order Myrtacese, and 
numbers about 150 species, of which about fifty are being natu- 
ralized in Algeria. Leaves of a certain fossil species have been 
discovered in several places in Switzerland, the beds belonging 
to the Miocene epoch. At Monte Bolca, in North Italy, three 
species have been discovered in strata of the Eocene epoch. So 
far as is yet known, no trace of the genus Eucalyptus has been 
found in any part of Britain. 
The best descriptions of Eucalyptus globulus are to be found 
in Sir J. Hooker’s “ FI. Tasmania*,” vol. i., and in Baron Muller’s 
“ Fragmenta Phytographise Australise ; ” but such accounts of 
it as are to be found in Bentley’s “ Handbook of Botany ” and 
other works of the kind will suffice for the ordinary reader. 
A long gap follows in the history of the Eucalyptus after 
Labillardffire’s discovery, only occasional specimens attracting 
the notice of arboriculturists, who often cultivated them without 
knowing what they were. In England, otherwise so abundantly 
supplied with specimens of the Australian flora, no attention was 
