Richmond
June 6/81
My dear Baron,
I sent you last week Miss Scott's
drawing of the
(which is certainly indigenous near Sydney), & also a copy of the remaining portion
of my article on Eucalypts.
It has been well recd, & I think it will be reprinted in the S. Mail.
My old pupil Mr C. Brown from Melbourne called to see me.
He spoke very kindly of you. I also had a chat about you with another old pupil Mr
James Fairfax. He seemed pleased with the book you sent him. He thinks of going to
England to place his sons at the University of Oxford.
As I had not time to run over to Cabramatta
to see the Iron Bark Box, I wrote to a friend to get some specimens. I forward to
you what he has sent, but the trees will not flower for three months, or more. As
I said before, the Iron Bark Box differs from
E. siderophloia
principally in the bark. The leaves are very similar, but generally, not so large
or thick. The two marks however, of distinction are the operculum (which is much shorter
than that of
E. Sid.
), & the shape of the fruit. We must wait for the anthers, unless you can decide from
the buds previously sent. My friend says that this tree grows generally in company
with
E. siderophloia
&
E. hemiphloia
. The true
E. sid.
has always a long operculum.
I send you what my friend collected. There is a great difficulty about the seedlings,
but I hope some day to look for myself. Mr Shepherd says that the saplings had more
of the appearance of Box, than of Iron Bark. This tree occurs also near Liverpool
Yours very sincerely
W. Woolls
Mrs Forde
got one of Sand's
prizes for drawings. Miss Scott did not send anything, as she was working for Turner
& Henderson.
At Emu at the foot of the Blue Mountains, there is an Iron Bark, which comes so close
to the Iron Bark Box of Cabramatta that I think it must be referred to the same species.
This Iron Bark differs from the broad leaved
E. siderophloia
in the following particulars
(1) It flowers in November or a month or two before the other.
(2) It prefers a forest or better soil.
(3) Its bark is not so rugged
(4) The operculum is at least only half the length.
(5) The stamens are not so numerous & shorter
(3) The pedicels of the buds are longer.
(4) The veins of the leaves are not conspicuous or divergent.
(5) The seed vessel is smaller, & the valves do not protrude so much.
I think that Mr Bentham regards the form
with a long operculum
as a mere variety of the other, & he calls it "
rostrata
". So far as I know, both near Richmond & Paramatta, the broad-leaved Iron Bark has
always a long operculum.
I may remark that in some respects, the tree with the short operculum resembles
E. paniculata
, but then the outer stamens are not anantherous.
As regards the wood it is reddish, & closely resembles that of the broad leaved Iron
Bark. The wood of
E. paniculata
is paler & harder. There were no young trees near that from which I got the specimen,
so I was unable to tell whether the young saplings resemble Box (
E. hemiphloia
)
Bastard Box
", "
Yellow Box
", "
Gum Box
" probably
E. bicolor
. This is a very large tree, belonging in its youthful stages to the Section
Hemiphloiae
, &, in the more advanced, to
Leiophloiae
. It grows in low & swampy ground here & there in the county of Cumberland, & also
further south in the county of Camden
&c., rising sometimes to the height of 100 or 150 feet, but frequently hollow or
decayed at heart. The wood, especially when dry, is exceedingly hard but it is valued
for plough-beams, poles & shafts of drays & carts, spokes of wheels &c. It is used for posts, but not for fencing-rails, as it is hard
to split. The wood is considered as next to Iron Bark in point of durability, & does
not crack from exposure to the Sun. The half barked young trees resemblance
Box (
E. hemiphloia
), but the older trees are more like the common Grey Gum (
E. tereticornis
). Hence the name "Gum Box", as if a link between the two. In the seedlings, the leaves
are almost round, but in the trees, they are narrow. If this is not Bentham's
E. bicolor
, I know of no other tree in these parts (excepting one form of narrow leaved Iron
Bark) to which the specimens of Brown & Caley
could possibly be referred. It may have occurred near Sydney in Brown's day, but
the ground is now cleared.
