The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1928-07-13

Society. washington, u VI
A USTRALIA, possessor of so
"A many features unfamiliar to
1 the rest of the world, might be
catalogued by nature lover
by her trees and her birds One read
lily understands why the Australian
loves his trees. The groves of giant
eucalyptus form pictures never for
gotten, and the scent of the waffle
brings homesick feeling like the
smell of the sage to Westerner.
The fora is not only beautiful, it is
unique, without counterpart in other
lands. OF the 10000 species of plants
most of them are purely Australian.
and are unknown even in New Yea
land. The general impression one
gets of Australian forests is their
total unlikeness to anything seen else
where. The great forests of timber
trees are not damp and shaded and
all of one species, but are well lighted
and filled with other forests of short
er trees; in places the woods consist
of large widely spaced trees surround
ed only by bunch grass, and even in
areas where water is not to be found
on the surface for hundreds of square
miles true forests of low trees are
present.
Forms which may be recognized as
tulip, lily, honeysuckle and fern take
on surprising aspect. They are not
garden flowers, but trees, and the
landscape of which they form part
reminds one of the hypothetical rep
reservations in books of science of a
landscape of MesOZOic time, a period
antedating our own by millions of
years.
The trees are indeed those of a by
gone age. In America and Europe
shadOwy forms of fossil leaves of
strange plant species are gathered
from the rock and studied with in
terest; in Australia many of these
ancient trees are living. The impress
sion that one is looking at a land
scape which has forever disappeared
from other parts of the world is so
vivid that the elms and naples and
oaks in some of the city streets strike
Earring note. The transition from
Jurassic to modern times is pain
fully abrupt.
With flora of such great interest,
it occasions no surprise to find that
Australia is the home of many emil
nent botanists, and that geologic his
tory is common subject of study
in schools.
Eucalyptus the National Tree. :
Australia is the home of the won
derful eucalyptus, a tree about which
fair-Sized library of books and
pamphlets has been written, without
exhausting the subject. For geological
ages the eucalypts have remained un-
disturbed in this biological backwa-
ter and, spreading over the con-
tinent, have adapted themselves to
many varieties of soil and climate and
elevation. About 300 species have al
ready been discovered in the small
part of the continent explored by
botanists.
1t is hopeless task for the tourist
to gain an acquaintance with this ma
tional tree. AS he passes through
woods and open spaces, seeing trees
Of widely different aspect-different
in form and method of branching, diff
ferent in color and kind of bark, diff
ferent in shape and size and color of
leaf. some Oozing gum, others clean
and dry-it is disconcerting to be
quietly told by his botanist-guide that
this surprising array of trees Sin
cludes only varieties of the genus
eucalyptus"
The Australian is likewise embar-
assed by these prolific variations of
eucalyptus. The trees in general are
'gums"-white gums, red gums, blue
gums, spotted gums, cabbage gums
or ironbark. stringy bark, woolly bark,
smooth bark; and when distinctions
are necessary we get such combina-
lions as ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ronbark,
or broad-leaved-yel low-stringy- bark.
GIANTS That Grow Rapidly.
The eucalyptus include some of the
tallest trees in the world. The Vic
torian forests department records
trees which measure 800, 1888 and 342
feet, and states that there are scores
of trees about 800 feet in height
The surveyor of the Dandenong
ranges made notes of the tallest trees
felled during an eight-year period and