23 
No. 43. 
Eucalyptus corymbose, Sm. 
The Bloodwood. 
(Natural Order MYRTACE^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Eucalyptus. (See Part IT, page 33.) 
Botanical description. —Species, E. corymbose, Sm., Bot. Nov. Roll. 43, and in 
Trans. Linn. Soc. in, 287. 
Usually a small or middle-sized tree, but sometimes attaining a great height, with a persistent 
scaly or flaky bark. 
Leaves. —Ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, acuminate, about 3 or 6 inches long, with numerous fine 
transverse parallel veins, often scarcely visible. 
Umbels loose, several-flowered, mostly in a terminal corymbose panicle, the peduncles slightly 
compressed or angular. 
Floivers rather large, on pedicels of 2 to 4 lines. 
Calyx-tube , when open, broadly turbinate, 3 or 4 lines diameter, often dilated at the margin. 
Operculum , short, hemispherical, umbonate or shortly acuminate. 
Stamens attaining 5 or 6 lines; anthers very small, but ovate, with distinct parallel cells opening 
longitudinally. 
Ovary short, flat-topped. 
Fruit more or less urceolate, \ to f inches long, usually contracted above the capsule and often 
expanded at the orifice, the rim narrow, the capsule sunk. 
Seeds large, ovate, more or less bordered by a wing, usually narrow.— (B.F1. iii, 256.) 
Botanical Name. — Eucalyptus, already explained, PartII, p. 34. Corymbose, 
from the Greek korumbos, or Latin corymbus, a summit. Hence the term corymb, 
in botany, where the stalks of the individual flowers are gradually elongated, so that 
the flowers are brought approximately to the same level (or top, or summit). The 
inflorescence of the Bloodwood (see Plate) is not a perfect corymb. 
Vernacular Name. —This tree is, perhaps, as fortunate in its vernacular 
name as any of the Eucalypts. It exudes abundance of kino (popularly known as 
“ gum ”—hence, “ gum-tree ”), and, Avhen freshly exuded, this has all the appearance 
of a stream of blood. So freely does it flow, and so like blood is it, that sometimes 
the appearance of the ground at the foot of one of the trees is quite startling. It is 
one of the few eucalypts that enjoys but one vernacular name. At the same time 
there are some other Bloodwoods in various parts of the Australian States. 
