The South Australian Naturalist 
11 
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN TREES (1) 
No. 2. The Stringy bark {Eucalyptus obliqua), L’Heritier, 1788 
By Wm. Ham and E. H. Ising. 
I. General. 
The stringybark is the finest of our South Australian 
•eucalypts. Unlike the Red-gum it grows with a straight stem 
and the wood is straight grained. In our hills it grows to a 
height of 80 feet, but in a more favorable environment, as in 
the rich soil and well-watered, sheltered gullies of Gippsland 
and Tasmania many specimens overtop 250 feet. But in the hills 
to the south, as Dr. Cleland has remarked (2), near Encounter 
Bay it grows in a low shrubby form, so great is the influence of 
rainfall and soil. At Myponga again in a good rainfall area and 
deep soil it grows to a fine height. 
The Stringybark lequires an abundant rainfall and attains 
its best development in our hills only on the highest ranges where 
the annual precipitation is at least 30 inches. (At Stirling (1628 
ft.) the average rainfall is 46.49 Inches with a maximum of 72 
inches in 1909). 
ao shallovrer soils it is often replaced by the 
Brown Stringybark” {E. capitellata) , an inferior tree not always 
to be distinguished from the “white stringybark.” Under favorable 
circumstances, as on the side of Mt. Lofty, E. obliqua forms a 
pure forest. 
A feature of the stringybark is its wonderful resistance b 
wfv n persistent bark protects it in an effectiv 
Tom; show signs of having been burnt a 
some stage of their growth in the blackened bark and chiefly 
mafnTtfmTnd^I^ peculiar growth of adventitious buds in tin 
mam stem and laiger branches, which give a strange outline t< 
‘'■e tree makes a shape! 
purl fore^t T eucalypts, but thick enough in th, 
P forest to prevent any great abundance of bush growth. 
the higher ranges were 
fall^otly gradlT^^n^^^ stringybarks, which held the rain- 
(1) The fitst oyhis^series appe^^^Th^l^isl^;;;^^ 
(2) S.A.N., Vol. VI. No. 3 (1925), 47. 
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