309 
No. 260. 
Eucalyptus globulus Labill. 
The Tasmanian and Victorian Blue Gum. 
fFamily MYRTACE/E.) 
Botanical description. Genus Eucalyptus, see Part II, p. 23. 
Botanical description. Species globulus Labillardiere, in " Relation du Voyage a 
la Recherche de la Perouse," &c., i, 153 (1799), with Plate 13 of the Atlas (1811). 
See Labillardiere's interesting original account of the tree, as given at 
Part XVIII, p. 249, of my " Critical Revision of the Genus Eucalyptus." 
Following is Bentham's description : 
A lofty tree, sometimes exceeding 200 feet, but in many situations flowering when not above 10 feet 
high, the young shoots and foliage often glaucous-white, the bark somewhat fibrous but deciduous, leaving 
the inner bark on the trunk smooth (F. Mueller). Leaves of the young tree opposite sessile and cordate, 
of the full-grown tree lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, falcate, often f to 1 foot long, the veins 
rather conspicuous, oblique and anastomosing, the intramarginal one at a distance from the edge. Flower 
large, axillary, solitary, or two or three together closely sessile on the stem, or on a penducle not longer 
than thick. Calyx-tube broadly turbinate, thick, woody, and replete with oil-receptacles more or less 
ribbed and rugose or warty or rarely smooth, \ to f inch diameter, the border prominent, and the four teeth 
sometimes conspicuous. Operculum thick, hard and warty, depressed-hemispherical with an umbonate 
or conical centre, shorter than the calyx-tube. Stamens above \ inch long, inflected in the bud, raised 
.above the calyx by the thick edge of the disk; anthers ovate, with parallel cells. Ovary as long as the 
calyx, slightly convex. Fruit semiglobular, \ to 1 inch diameter, the broad, flat-topped disk or rim 
projecting above the calyx, the capsule nearly level with it, the valves flat, not protruding. (B. Fl. iii, 225). 
It was subsequently figured and described in Mueller's " Eucalyptographia." 
Botanical Name. Eucalyptus, already explained (see Part II, p. 34) ; globulus 
in Latin is a little ' round bowl, and also the fruit of a certain Cypress tree. It is the 
describer's way of referring to the fruit, " which very much resembles a coat button 
in shape." 
Vernacular Name. The " Blue Gum " of Tasmania and Victoria, and to 
a less extent in use in New South Wales. The term Blue Gum is locally given to a large 
number of trees which have a bluish cast of the trunk, or of the foliage, or both. 
Sometimes the term is a comparative one. One tree may give a man an idea of greater 
blueness than another. The application is sometimes puzzling, because some Blue 

