Eucalyptus Gallery

An Introduction: The imagery in Eucalyptus relies heavily on the image of the eucalyptus garden on Holland's manor and, more specifically, the individual trees that make up this "landscape." This is a theme that I address more in-depth on another page that I encourage you to visit. The book is fascinating, and somewhat surreal, for Holland's ability to take such delicate, yet numerous species of eucalyptus trees and plant them all in one climate.

With this image in mind, it is my intention to provide visitors to this site a chance to immerse themselves in a virtual garden that hopes to reflect both Murray Bail's and Holland's creation in the novel. Surely, I can understand this website's audience is limited in its ability to see eucalyptus trees first-hand, but the marvel of the internet creates such opportunities.

Each tree picture should be linked to another page which can describe the tree more fully than I can. Throughout the page, I will try to include citations from the book to enhance your experience.

Without further ado, I present to you, The Virtual Eucalyptus Garden! Enjoy the exploration.

"Eucalyptus Rubida." 29 March 2008. Wikipedia. 5 May 2008.

On a property in New South Wales, a widower named Holland lives with his daughter, Ellen. Over the years as she grows into a beautiful woman, Holland plants hundreds of different eucalyptus trees on his land, filling the landscape, making a virtual outdoor museum of trees. When Ellen is nineteen, Holland announces that she may only marry the man who can correctly name the species of each and every gum tree on his property. A strange contest begins, and Ellen is left unmoved by her suitors until she chances on a strange young man resting under the Coolibah tree whose stories will amaze and dazzle her. A modern fairy tale and an unforgettable love story, interwoven with spiky truths and unexpected wisdom about art, feminine beauty, landscape, and language, Eucalyptus affirms the seductive power of storytelling itself.

"One of the best courtship stories every written..." - The Seattle Times

...the earth had a geological camel-look...(4)

The word eucalypt is from the Greek, 'well' and 'covered'. It describes something peculiar to the genus. Until they open, ready for fertilisation, the eucalypt's buds are covered by an operculum, in effect putting a lid on the reproductive organs...(34)

This is a book obsessed by the power of stories and the sweep of landscape and the vagaries of love....A fascinating and original novel..." -Colm Toibin, author of Mothers and Sons

Tall trees breed even taller stories...(79)

There are five different Scribbly Gums, like five brothers in mythology, each bearing a significant name: sclerophylla, signata, rossii, racemosa and—see the red rim of its fruit—haeastoma...(82)

"Eucalyptus." 27 April 2007. DeviantART. 5 May 2008. Picture courtesy of dragonlare123.

Photography is the art of comparison...(17)

And look at you. Already you're the prettiest doll for a hundred miles...(14)

Ellen never tired of hearing the story...(11)

"Eucalyptus Haemastoma." 8 March 2008. Wikipedia. 5 May 2008.

"Eucalyptus Tree After Rain." 18 February 2008. DeviantART. 5 May 2008. Picture courtesy of MH Imagination Illustrations.

So she, Ellen, was sowing the seeds of her own future...(16)

Clarity, lack of darkness—these might be called 'eucalyptus qualities'...(15)

It was one of those illnesses without a name. She could only be brought back to life by a story...(234)

"Eucalyptus Bark." 20 February 2007. DeviantART. 5 May 2008. Picture courtesy of MH Imagination Illustrations.

"Eucalyptus Woodwardii." 29 March 2008. Wikipedia. 5 May 2008.

In a rush of keenness Holland decided he wanted to know everything, beginning with the names of things—the birds and the rocks, above all, the trees...(15)

A forest is language; accumulated years...(255)

It was told to Ellen by a man she met only days before (so, a virtual stranger), who had a circuitous story-telling manner, as if he was making it up, and what is more he told it under a tree where the crows were making their din; he also added bits of factual information she had no way of verifying, which seemed to have little bearing on the main thing being said. For all these distractions Ellen found the story powerful for what it may have represented, in other words, for what it didn't say exactly...(96)

"Eucalyptus Chapmaniana." 29 March 2008. Wikipedia. 5 May 2008.

Almost overnight she had become beautiful. She had grown from a small darting-about figure to a gliding, drifting, fuller one... (31)

"Eucalyptus Jacksonii." 29 March 2008. Wikipedia. 5 May 2008.

"Eucalyptus Globulus." 4 May 2008. Wikipedia. 5 May 2008.

As they went from tree to tree and he told other stories, Ellen allowed them slowly to circle and enter her...(129)

It was raining in Corunna. She hurried along the streets and tried the cafes. All the men could do was shrug. She gave descriptions of him. All morning she sat with a hot chocolate at their usual table. On the third day she went up to the mirror in the tower to find his whereabouts. There was nothing. The mirror was black...(202)

The first eucalypt—if it's possible to be precise about a passion—is the one closest to the front of the house. Positioned off-centre it breaks the accelerating horizontality of the front verandah, and from most angles happens to obscure the window of the daughter's bedroom...(16)

As she walked quickly and entered the trees she stopped and in the stillness couldn't help touching, if only for a moment, the nearest of the evenly spaced trunks. Eucalypts which were the cause of it all also gave a moment's pause...(89)

"Eucalyptus Caliginosa." 25 April 2008. Wikipedia. 5 May 2008.

She was his daughter. He could do anything he liked with her. Yes; but weeks passed before he brought her into town. 'Acclimatising' was very much on his mind...(10)

How did E. nubilis get is name? A curious one. Nubilis means 'marriageable'...(96)

So trees produced oxygen in the form of words. Ellen could hear his voice. Stories with foreign settings came closer to home. They came back to her. It was due to sheets of water lying around, and the bedraggled eucalypts begging for attention....(198)

The Dictionary of Miracles has multiple entires on the appearance of extraordinary tears, almost as many as water into wine and talking without a tongue. The weeping mosaics: a long and hypnotic history. Tears imply a purification; sorrow into ecstasy is a religious movement. Jesus wept...(209)