Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a novel by the Australian writer Murray Bail, published in 1998. It is set on a property in western New South Wales, where a man named Holland lives with his daughter, Ellen.

As Ellen grows into a beautiful young woman, her father plants hundreds of different eucalyptus trees across his land, filling in the landscape until the property is a virtual outdoor museum of trees. When she is nineteen he announces the rule that governs her future: she may marry only a man who can name the species of every gum tree he has planted.

Suitors emerge from all corners to attempt it, and the novel sets their attempts against the story of Ellen herself, which is told through a parodied version of a fairy tale rather than as a conventional romance.

The book contrasts the detailed scientific classification of eucalyptus trees with the life of the woman whose marriage is being decided by it, and it was written by an author whose work also includes non-fiction about Australian landscape and culture.