The South Australian Naturalist. 
35 
It grows to a good si^e tree, attaining a height of 50 feet. The 
trunk is usualh' straight, but soon sends out branches. 'I'he bark 
is smooth, whitish-cream to a pale brv.wn, a grey colour appears 
usualh' in blotches, but the creamy-brown colour is the predom- 
inating one. In old trees the base ol tlie trunk is olten rougli 
and dark. It is often difficult to distinguish the yellow gum from 
the red gum (E. roslrata) in the field, but if the former is under 
review the cream\^-brown trunk and large dark green leaves will 
be noticed as compared with the greyish-green bark and light 
green leaves of the red ginn. Tlie leaves are mostly pendent and 
vary in length and width, being up to 5 inch long by half to one 
inch wide. The}' also vary in shape but have a general lanceolate 
outline. The buds hat^e an elongated hd, being quite half an 
inch long and almost yellow. '1 he flowers (consisting of numer- 
ous stamens), are usualh- cream} but in the mallee at Ivinchina 
a pink flowering variety is to be obtained. The flowers are about 
one inch in diameter when full opened and are arranged in um- 
bels in the axils of the leaves. The fruits grow to almost half 
an inch across when mature and have a stalk quite half an inch 
long. The fruit forms a little cup with the valves situated well 
below the rim, ana It forms a safe means of identification when 
compared with the red gum. The latter has small fruits much 
less than a quarter of an inch in diameter with the valves produc- 
ed well above the rim. 
Ill GEOLOGY. 
The yellow gum is found in various parts of the Mt. Lofty 
Ranges, and where it occurs along the Greenhill Road and In the 
kit. Pleasant district the underlying rocks are composed of clay- 
slates and to a less extent c|uart/.ites. This species is generally 
found with the red gum but it does not grow in the gully bottoms 
where the red gum flourishes. At Kultpo Forest Tealc (1) re- 
cords the yellow gum in gre}- to dark-grey sandy loam, clay 
loam and silt loam derived from tertiary to recent sands, gravels, 
clays, grits, boulder deposits and alluviums. 
In Xatlonal Park, Belair. the soil given by Osborn (2) is a 
cold grey sand}' loam formed b}' decomposition of cpiartzite 
locks of Cambrian age.'” I his is in a lowlying sv'amp area 
but we have noticed the }-ellow gum growing in dry situations 
along the ridges at 1,000 feet above sea level, In fact, it is unusual 
lor It to be growing in damp situations. 
(1) Bull. 6. Dept, of Forestrv, Adelaide University. 1918 
(2) Trans. Roy. Soc., S.A., Vol. 42 (1918), p. 8.' ' 
