I’ve always enjoyed the Eucalyptus trees in California. My experience with them in my early years was driving along Highway 99 and seeing these interesting trees with their unique foliage. The most impressive thing about them was the Eucalyptus fragrance that would burst forth in the heat of the summer. I was surprised to find out that they are not native to California but were brought from Australia where they are a native plant. I took these photos one morning on my walk just outside my neighborhood in Southern California. I’m including part of a study on the Eucalyptus tree from a University in California.
FROM DOWN UNDER IT CAME
While traveling along the roads and highways of California, especially along its coast and inland valleys, one will see the usual oak, pine, and scrubbrush. Yet there is another member of the plant family whose presence is dominating and charismatic. Its size is lofty; its silhouette captivating; its smell clean and antiseptic like the scent unfurling from a medicine cabinet. Many think it is a California native, but it is not. It is really an immigrant from Australia that arrived as many immigrants have in this wonderful country, surreptitiously.
It is the remarkable eucalyptus of which we speak that came from the virgin forests of that vast land down under, Australia. It is as curious as that land with its pouched animals and mysterious aborigines. Its adaptability and its hardiness can be seen in its groves which cling to the California hillsides and fill the crevices of the landscape. It is difficult to imagine what California would look like without the seemingly omnipresent eucalyptus.
It has had a checkered history though in California. At first it was a tree of promise stirring the imagination, and then later becoming a tree of disappointment and ultimately disdain. In its homeland of Australia, it was a true friend to the settler supplying material for a pioneer’s needs. Its almost mythical reputation came with the Australians to the California goldfields and with the American travelers who had seen the colossus in Australia.
In Australia, the eucalyptus has been the tree of folklore where children sing of the “kookaburra in the gum tree.” Where also children and aborigines, enjoy the sweet flakes of the manna gum. Medicine is found in its oils which has been used to cure everything from an upset stomach to a nasty laceration. Doctors and primitive cultures have both used it as a healer. The eucalyptus provided the early Australian settler materials for buildings, implements, and desperately-needed fuel. Its powers, its versatility was virtually unchallenged by anything else on the Australian continent.
The purpose of this study is to tell the story of this amazing tree and its impact on California. There is an array of literature, both scientific and historical, that gives only segments of the story. This study is an attempt to fashion those segments into a tailored narrative that has clarity and imparts information to the reader. It is by no means comprehensive. The focus is on important facts, major personalities, and key issues. The documentation is provided for further research and study of this fascinating immigrant tree.
The study where I copied this information is no longer available.
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry, merry king of the bush is he
Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh, Kookaburra!
Gay your life must be
This is just one verse of the song…
This song was written in 1936, and introduced at a Scout Jamboree in Melbourne, Australia. In case you’re wondering, a kookaburra is an Australian bird, and a “gum tree” is what Americans know as a eucalyptus. The “gum drops” that the kookaburra eats in the song are beads of the resinous sap.
My sister Lana has some great photos of the Kookaburra that she took when she was in Australia.
Check them out here.
