Discovering Eucalyptus: Anthesis (I)

Eucalyptus, from Greek ευ (well) + κάλυπτος (veiled) = "Well covered"

Anthesis, from Greek άνθος (flower) + ησις (event) = "The time or action of a flower opening"

Anthesis in Eucalyptus robusta (Swamp Mahogany) flowers.
Photography by Brian Johnston (Click image to enlarge)

"The tree above described appears to be undoubtedly of the same genus as that cultivated in some greenhouses in England, which Mr. L'Héritier has described in his Sertum Anglicum (1) but we dare not assert it to be the same species, nor can this point be determined till the flowers and every part of both be seen and compared"

John White Esquire, Surgeon-General to the First Fleet and the Settlement at Port Jackson (2)

References

• (1) = L'Héritier de Brutelle, Charles Louis (1788) Eucalyptus obliqua L'Hérit. Sertum Anglicum seu Plantae Rariores quae in Hortis juxta Londinum; 18, t. 20. Imprimis in Horto Regio Kewensi Excoluntur, ab Anno 1786 ad Annuum 1787 Observatae. Paris
  
• (2) = White, John (1790) Journal of a voyage to New South Wales : with sixtyfive plates of non descript animals, birds, lizards, serpents, curious cones of trees and other natural productions. Debrett, London

Links

A Flower Garden of Macroscopic Delights

by Brian Johnston (Canada)

Views Through a Mathematical Microscope of Some Three-Dimensional Oddities
by Brian Johnston (Canada)


Also in EUCALYPTOLOGICS...

The Footprints of Citizen Labillardière

Chronology of the discovery of Eucalyptus globulus

GIT's Eucalyptology Topics

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© 2008 Gustavo Iglesias Trabado. Please contact us if you want to use all or part of this text and photography elsewhere. We like to share, but we do not like rudeness.