Page:Report on the forest resources of Western Australia 1879.djvu/16

 as it relates merely to the somewhat thickened margin of the leaves, which indeed is not more evident than in most Eucalypts. The founder of the Linnean Society received liis specimens from Archibald Menzies, naturalist to the expedition of Captain Vancouver, who in 1791 discovered and named King George's Sound, and who was thus also instrumental in rendering known first of all many South-West Australian plants.

Explanation of Lithogram. Plate I.

The main Lithogram (Plate I.) exhibits in this, and all subsequent Plates, the natural size of the foliage, flowers, and fruits.

1. Longitudinal section of unexpanded flower; 2. Front view of anther (with portion of the filament); 3. Back view of the same; 4. Style, with its minute stigma; 5. Longitudinal section of fruit; 6. Transverse section of fruit; 7. Sterile seeds; 8. Fertile seeds; 9. Embryo.— 1 to 4 and 9, magnified; 5 to 8, natural size.

2. Eucalyptus calophylla. R. Brown, in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1831, 20. Bentham's Flora Australiensis, iii. 255. The Red Gum-tree of South-West Australia (but not of the interior or the eastern colonies).

Leaves scattered, on long stalks, broad- or lanceolar-ovate, acute, of rather thick consistence, much paler and not shining underneath, with numerous very spreading subtile closely-parallel veins, the peripheric vein contiguous with the margin; umbels four- to six -flowered, interminal panicles, or some few axillary and solitary; stalklets quadrangular, generally about as long as the stalks and as the pear-shaped calyx; lid depressed-hemispheric, very short, only about half as broad as the tube of the calyx; stamens all perfect; filaments inflexed before expansion; anthers cuneate- or oval-oblong, with parallel cells opening lengthwise; fruits large, urceolar-ovate, three- to four-celled, not angular; valves short, deeply enclosed; fertile seeds very large, brown-black, at the edge acute, but not produced into a membranous appendage.

Interspersed with the Yarrah-Eucalypt throughout nearly the whole area of that species, but less gregarious, though next to it the most frequent of South-West Australian trees, seemingly reaching its northern boundary on the Hill river and its southern at King George's Sound, mixed also into the forests of E. loxophleba, but not into those of E. diversicolor.

The most umbrageous among tall Eucalypts of the colony, on account of its leaves turning the surface more than the edge to the zenith, a characteristic which it shares with but few Eucalypts although with most other trees of the globe. The bark is persistent, rough, furrowed, and pervaded with Kino, for which reason this species would be ranked with the Ironbark-trees of Eastern Australia, if indigenous there. Its place in the cortical system is among the Schizophloiae. The foliage of younger seedlings is remarkable, their stems, leaf-stalks, and leaves being beset with bristly hairs, while the leaves are affixed, not like leaves of the more aged tree to their stalks at the base, but are inserted at a considerable distance above the base, as shown in the background of the lithographic illustration.

The growth of E. calophylla is far more rapid than that of E. marginata. The tree yields locally much timber for naves, harrows, ploughs, shafts, spokes, rafters, handles, frames, rails, and various building operations; but the wood cannot be utilised for underground work, being subject to decay when so placed. It is generally more free of Kino-substance when grown on alluvial soil, and is tougher than that of E. marginata, but not so strong as that of E. loxophleba; this is the only tree in West Australia producing Kino copiously, this tanning substance being drawn into use not only locally as an admixture to the bark of Acacia saligna, but exported also both in a liquid and a dry state. In height E. calophylla u not inferior to E. marginata, and stems have exceptionally been observed with a diameter of ten feet.

Robert Brown, when as companion of Captain Flinders in 1802 he visited the south coast of