You will not meet a more passionate defender of the Eucalyptus trees on campus than Electrical Engineering Prof. Ronald Bracewell. Perhaps it is because they share so much in common — for instance, they’re both native Australians.

Bracewell, a mathematician, physicist and radio astronomer by training, hopes that his new book, “Trees of Stanford and Environs,” will educate people about the local plant life, a subject on which he is acknowledged by many, including former University President Donald Kennedy, as the foremost expert.

Maybe, he hopes, it will also convince critics to lay off the genus Eucalipto.

“Eucalypto-phobes just want to kill them cause they’re aliens,” he said. These “Eucalypto-phobes,” according to Bracewell, fit into the larger family of “Extreme Enviros,” people who take radical, uninformed stances on environmental issues and who are “bringing into disrepute” the practice of environmentalism. They believe, for example, that all non-native species are necessarily bad.

So Bracewell took great pleasure in learning recently that the Monarch butterflies, of which the Eucalypto-phobes are fond, have taken to roosting in the Eucalyptus groves around Monterey during their migration between Canada and Mexico. And so people are often torn.

“People hate aliens, but love butterflies,” he said.

Bracewell and insects go way back. In his book, he describes collecting caterpillars from trees as a young boy growing up in Sydney, Australia — an activity that led to his interest in botany.

He modestly calls botany a “hobby,” but it is one that has engaged his fascination for many decades.

In 1973 he put together the first “samizdat” edition of “Trees of Stanford,” which he still keeps on a shelf in his office. It is a thick, loosely-bound collection of typewritten sheets, filled with heavy marginalia and the occasional leaf.

Bracewell has also taken an active role in preserving elements of the Stanford landscape.

In 1979 he joined a protest to save six avocado trees. According to one source, the leader of the revolt threatened that Bracewell would chain himself to the first avocado to be bulldozed.

Herb Fong, manager of Stanford’s Grounds Services Department, said he first met Bracewell more than 30 years ago, when he directed the removal of some unattractive shrubs from a median strip.

The “shrub” turned out to be a particularly low-growing form of Eucalyptus, as Fong discovered when he received a series of urgent phone calls from the anxious professor.

After that, Fong worked closely with Bracewell and also helped with the research for his recent book.

Bracewell reports being continually amazed by the “complexity and interconnection” found in natural life and points to the example of the oak moth, which may exist in a symbiotic relationship with one particular species of oak tree.

Students may recognize the oak moth as the squirming, dangling caterpillars that hit them in the face as they bike to class.

Bracewell said he believes that ordinary people would be better equipped to deal with environmental problems if they had a better understanding of the intricacies of the natural world, just outside their back door.

“People never stop to look at leaves or bark or flowers,” he said. “They’re not observant.”

Bracewell, on the other hand, is very observant. During his interview with The Daily, he noticed a tiny insect on one of his chairs, and he suspected that this reporter had brought it in.

His office is cluttered with the accumulation of years of observation, including books of botanical water colors, a mounted sample of the “biggest leaf on campus” and a wide collection of Eucalyptus operculum — the hard cap that protects the budding flowers.

There are also a few tall Coast Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) swaying outside his window. Bracewell said he hopes to use the redwoods to interest more students in trees by starting a competition to find the tallest specimen on campus using the trigonometric process outlined in his book.

For his next project, Bracewell is writing a history of radio astronomy. He also studies the sun and says he “still has some solar problems in the back of his mind.”

He said he considers himself fortunate to work on such a lush campus, where he can watch the trees bloom year-round. One of his favorites is the Coral Gum, a species of Eucalyptus that produces full, red flowers which, as Bracewell said, “are good for picking and putting in your buttonhole.”