Family: Myrtaceae
Eucalyptus diversifolia
Citation:
Bonpl., Descr. pl. Malm. 3:35 (1814).
Synonymy: E. santalifolia F. Muell., J. Trans. Vict. Inst. 1:35 (1855); E. viminalis Labill. var. diversifolia Benth., Fl. Aust. 3:240 (1866), cited by Blakely (1934) but the combination apparently not made by Bentham.
Common name: Coastal white mallee gum, soap mallee, coast gum, South Australian coastal mallee.
Description:
Multi-stemmed trees to 4 m high or single-stemmed trees to 10 m; bark smooth, pale-grey when fresh, becoming dark and shedding in strips; cotyledons shallowly and broadly emarginate; juvenile leaves opposite, sessile or stem-clasping, ovate below, becoming lanceolate above, dull to waxy; adult leaves alternate, on petioles 8-20 mm long, narrow-lanceolate to lanceolate, uncinate, usually 6-10 x 1.5-2 cm, a dull grey-green; veins faint.
Flowers in pedunculate umbels of 4-11 in leaf axils; buds on pedicels 2-4 mm long, cylindrical-fusiform, 7-10 x 5-6 mm; operculum hemispherical or conical, about as long as or longer than the hypanthium; filaments white; anthers all fertile, deltoid-cordate; stamens arranged spirally under the cap.
Fruit globose to hemispherical or turbinate, 7-12 x 8-15 mm; disk usually raised or domed; valves level with or just above the rim, brittle and caducous, 4; seeds without wings, irregularly pyramidal or D-shaped, a dark reddish-brown.
Published illustration:
Chippendale (1973) Eucalypts of Western Australian goldfields, p. 40; Boomstoa & Lewis (1980) Native forest and woodland vegetation of South Australia, p. 54.
Distribution:
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W.Aust.; Vic.
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Conservation status:
native
Flowering time: winter — spring.
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SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia
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Biology:
No text
Author:
Not yet available
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