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418 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Oocr., 1899. 
Bark.—The bark is deciduous, and of a smooth, bluish, whitish or ashen 
colour. It peels off in thin, ragged flakes or ribbons, and leaves patches of a 
grey, or dark-red, or sometimes of a bluish-red, or slaty-red hue. As on every 
tree the bark is generally hanging in ragged shreds, exposing the inner bark, 
these give the tree an untidy appearance. 
Leaves.—The leaves are alternate and opposite, lanceolate, faleate, and 
acuminate, from 2 or 8 to as much as 6 inches in length, and from 1 to 2inches 
wide, with somewhat coarse oblique veins. 
Flowers—The flowers are from 4 to 8 in number, in axillary or 
lateral peduneles, the upper ones forming a terminal panicle. They are of a 
creamy or whitish colour, and are in blossom from July to September. This 
tree is one of the most constant as to the annual flowering period, and its 
flowers are much sought after by bees. 
Fruit.—The fruit is an ovoid or almost globular capsule, about ¢-inch in 
diameter. It seeds in April and May. * 
Though distinguished by its bark, the broad and very prominent rim of the 
fruit, and the timber, this tree is subject to great variation in the shape of the 
leaves, the length of the operculum or flower-lid, and the size of the capsule; 
whilst, in moist places, the umbel often exceeds the typical number of flowers. 
It is closely allied to £. rostrata, Schl. (the Red Gum-tree), but the two trees 
differ altogether in habit—one being a forest tree, the other a river tree. — 
VERNACULAR AND Borantcat Names.—The Queensland Blue Gum possesses 
ayarietyofnames. Thename “Blue Gum” isappliedto it from thesupposed blue 
colour of the bark, and as this is the name by which it is best known in this 
colony I have appended the adjective “Queensland” to it, to distinguish it 
from the blue gums of the other colonies, each of which unfortunately for 
description possesses one. It is also known as Grey Gum (from the colour of the 
inner bark after the outer bark has peeled off), Red Gum (from the colour of its 
timber), Slaty Gum (from the slaty-coloured bark), and Bastard Box (probably 
from the timber being very close-grained and interlocked, certainly not because 
of any resemblance of its bark to that of the box). The specific name, 
tereticornis, was given to this species by Sir J. 8. Smith, founder of the Linnaen 
Society, from the resemblance of the operculum or flower-lid to a long horn. 
Disrrisurion.—The Queensland Blue Gum is found luxuriating in well- 
watered open forests, and on good land bordering creeks and rivers, lagoons, 
marshes, and swamps on both sides of the Dividing Range in Queensland as far 
north as the Herberton tablelands, and also in the coastal districts of New 
South Wales and Victoria. 
Uses.—The Queensland Blue Gum yields a valuable close-grained, heavy, 
tough, durable, reddish or pinkish timber, not very easy, however, to dress. It 
is used for building and many other purposes, such as plough beams, poles and 
shafts of drays, and owing to its elasticity is specially adapted and much 
esteemed for naves and felloes of wheels, and is also suitable for gun carriages. It 
is used in shipbuilding and for railway ties and girders. Where ironbark cannot 
be procured, it is usually used for posts and rails and general fencing purposes. 
As posts, it seldom decays from dry rot, whilst round posts withstand for a long 
while the attacks of the white ants. For railway sleepers and telegraph poles 
it is inferior to several of the other species of ironbark. Whether in or out 
of the ground it is very durable, and less liable to decay by dry rot than many 
other timbers. If obtained from the banks of rivers or off alluvial ground— 
for it is on these places that it attains its greatest perfection—and properly 
dried and seasoned, it will remain sounder underground for a longer period 
than on the top. It furnishes only a very inferior fuel, burning with great 
difficulty. ' 
The bark contains but a small quantity of tannin—less than 8 per cent. 
The honey produced by the flowers of this tree is of a pale-amber colour, 
and has a delightful musky perfume. 
