White Gums And Winter Skies

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30453, 29 May 1964, Page 6

White Gums And Winter Skies

, The vast family of gums, of which there are over 500 species, is almost entirely confined to Australia. They Vary In size, from small shrub-like mallee types to the forest giants whose heights compete with the Californian redwoods for the world’s tallest trees. In the main the gums are considered as timber trees and during the last century many different kinds were introduced into New Zealand in the hope of finding another .timber tree like Pinus tadiata. This “wonder tree’.’ never seems to have been found and remnants of some of these plantations still remain as-col-lections of rather scruffy tree's. Many early farms and old homesteads planted gums to provide shelter and some fine old trees can still be seen. Most gums make large trees, need plenty of space to de-

velop and are unsuited to a small garden. The smaller growing and most handsome flowering kinds need a warm climate and can only be grown in areas where there is little or no frost. One gum which can be often seen planted around farms and homesteads in Canterbury, is Eucalyptus dalrympleana, or White Gum, a native of Tasmania. The white gum makes a medium to large tree and may be over a hundred feet in height. Like all Eucalyptus species it is fast-growing in its early years. It has two different types of leaves for the-young ones are grey, thin textured, opposite, broadly oval and almost stemless so that they appear to almost encircle the stem. The adult leaves are thick green, leathery and sickle shaped. Flowers are freely produced and- these are white but not very spectacular. The beauty of this tree is in its trunk. This is intensely white and this-colouration carries up to the thinnest branches. Whilst this colouring is obvious at all, times of the year it is in the winter when it really comes into its own. At this time of the year, when colours generally are subdued, the whiteness of the trunk glistens in the winter sunshine and is most beautiful against a blue sky. ' .