The Collaborative International Dictionary
Eucalyptus \Eu`ca*lyp"tus\, n. [NL., from Gr. e'y^ well, good + ? covered. The buds of Eucalyptus have a hemispherical or conical covering, which falls off at anthesis.] (Bot.) A myrtaceous genus of trees, mostly Australian. Many of them grow to an immense height, one or two species exceeding the height even of the California Sequoia.
Syn: eucalyptus tree, gum tree, eucalypt. [1913 Webster]
Note: They have rigid, entire leaves with one edge turned toward the zenith. Most of them secrete resinous gums, whence they called gum trees, and their timber is of great value. Eucalyptus Globulus is the blue gum; E. gigantea, the stringy bark: E. amygdalina, the peppermint tree. E. Gunnii, the Tasmanian cider tree, yields a refreshing drink from wounds made in the bark in the spring. Other species yield oils, tars, acids, dyes and tans. It is said that miasmatic valleys in Algeria and Portugal, and a part of the unhealthy Roman Campagna, have been made more salubrious by planting groves of these trees.
Wiktionary
n. (gum tree English)
Usage examples of "gum trees".
Ill plant rows of gum trees, and Im going to send away for seeds and plants--put in a kind of experimental farm.
One of us once lived in Canberra, where all the pastures and well-watered, succulent young gum trees made a Christmas beetle heaven.
The gum trees closed in tightly around him, separated only by the four-lane roadway.
That tobacco-colored water that could gleam like amber when the sun beamed through the oak and gum trees.
He looked down into the grove of gum trees where the distant figures of Lessis and Lagdalen sat unmoving beneath a tree.
He rode on, following the hoof-trodden line as it wound between cottonwood and sweet gum, skirted a rock outcrop, crossed an old burn almost bare of vegetation, and plunged again into a thicket of oaks dotted with still more gum trees and cottonwood.
Fred Black was interrupted by a cry and the sight of a female figure racing down the avenue of blue gum trees towards them, slim and young, with honey brown hair in a thick braid bouncing on her back, long brown legs and grubby bare feet beneath the skirts of the faded cheap cotton skirt.