405 
No. 270. 
Tristania laurina R.Br. 
Water Gum. 
(Family MYRTACE>E.) 
Botanical description. Genus Tristania, see Part V, p. 107. 
Botanical description. Species T. laurina R.Br. in Ait., Hort. Kew, ed. 2, iv, 
417 (1812). 
A somewhat scrubby shrub in exposed localities, becoming in moist situations a tree, often of 
great height, the young shoots more or less glaucous or silky-pubescent, especially the under side of the 
leaves, the older foliage glabrous. Leaves alternate, elliptical or obovate, lanceolate, acuminate, 
penniveined, 2 to 4 inches long, narrowed into a petiole. Flowers yellow, in short axillary cymes, on a 
very short common peduncle, the pedicels rarely longer than the calyx. Calyx-tube broadly campauul ate, 
1 to 2 lines diameter, lobes small, triangular, distant at the time of flowering, although imbricate in the 
young bud. Petals 1 to 2 lines long, usually undulate. Staminal bundles inflexed, scarcely exceeding 
the petals, the claws very short, each with fifteen to twenty filaments. Ovary half -adnate, the summit 
very convex, hirsute, not depressed round the style, with several (about ten) reflexed ovules in each cell. 
Capsule obovoid or almost globular, 3 to 5 lines diameter, adnate at the base only, filling the calyx-tube 
and protruding considerably beyond it. Seeds oblong, flat, laterally attached near the top, the upper 
part thin and winglike, embryo in the lower thickened portion ; cotyledons deeply cordate and folded 
over each other ; radicle superior, rather long. (B. Fl. iii, 261.) 
Botanical Name. Tristania, see Part V, p. 108; laurina, Latin, meaning 
reminiscent of a Laurel leaf, which is, however, nor very appropriate, our tree having 
leaves narrower than those of the true Laurel as a rule. 
Vernacular Names. The commonest name is " Water Gum," because it 
often grows in damp situations, usually in beds of more or less intermittent streams. 
I have heard other names applied to it, but none better than the above, I think. Because 
it sometimes grows at a fair elevation, e.g., on the Upper Manning and Ellenborough 
Rivers, it is locally known as " Mountain Water Gum." 
Aboriginal Names. " Wallaya " of the aborigines of Brisbane Water, New 
South Wales, according to the late Sir William Macarthur. 
The late Dr. A. W. Howitt told me that in Gippsland (e.g., about Metung), it 
is called " Kanooka," but it is not an aboriginal name, although it looks like it. The 
aboriginal name is " Koomil." 
Synonym. Melaleuca laurina, Sm. in Trans. Linn. Soc., iii, 275 (1797). 
Flowers. They are yellow, and have an unpleasant scent. 
