The Gum Tree Is Australian Poem by Francis Duggan

The gum tree is Australian as Aussie as can be
And there's no more Australian than the eucalyptus tree
They have been in Australia perhaps since life began
Thousands and thousands of years before coming of man.

The mountain ash the big giant in forest park stand tall
He tower above all others beside him they seem small
The stringybark and ironbark familiar to the eye
You know them by the bark they wear the gum trees never lie.

The manna gum and flowering gum all different none the same
The gray gums and the scented gums so many one could name
A few hundred different species of Australian gum tree
And all of them belong to eucalyptus family.

Man took gum seeds to Italy and to the U.S.A.
And now they grow in foreign Lands thousands of miles away
But the gum trees grown on foreign soil are Aussie as can be
For there's no more Australian than the eucalyptus tree