Eucalyptus nutans
| Red-flowered moort | |
|---|---|
 | |
| E. nutans habit | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Rosids |
| Order: | Myrtales |
| Family: | Myrtaceae |
| Genus: | Eucalyptus |
| Species: | E. nutans |
| Binomial name | |
| Eucalyptus nutans | |
Eucalyptus nutans, commonly known as red-flowered moort, is a mallee tree that is native to a small area along the south coast of Western Australia.[1]
Description
The mallet tree typically grows to a height of 4 metres (13 ft) but can reach as high as 10 metres (33 ft) and has smooth grey bark and glossy dark green leaves.[1] It has an erect habit and is non-lignotuberous. The petiolate, thick, glossy adult leaves have a blade that is ovate to orbicular and 52 to 73 millimetres (2.0 to 2.9 in) in length and 33 to 50 mm (1.3 to 2.0 in) wide. The buds have an obtusely conical shape and are slightly warty 8 to 11 mm (0.31 to 0.43 in) long and 3.5 mm (0.14 in) wide. It blooms between November and April producing inflorescences with red, or sometimes cream, coloured stamens. The sessile fruit that forms later has a cupular to obconical shape with four wings, a narrow rim and five valves in a wheel-like arrangement. The fruits contain black seeds with a compressed obovoid to ovoid shape.[2]
Distribution
It is found in broad depressions in a couple of areas along the south coast in the Great Southern region between Albany and Jerramungup where it grows in grey clay soils.[1] Once thought to be extinct it was rediscovered in 2006 found only in a single population on an unvested reserve near Fitzgerald River National Park. The stand is on gravelly clay over spongolite marine sediments. The stand is more or less pure with Acacia glaucoptera, A. cyclops, Hakea laurina, Eucalyptus phenax, E. occidentalis, Rhadinothamnus rudis and species of Lepidosperma and Astroloma also present.[2]
Taxonomy
The species was first described by the botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in 1863 from samples that George Maxwell had collected near Bremer Bay. Around a century and a half later, Ian Brooker and Stephen Hopper published the names Eucalyptus platypus subsp. congregata, E.cernua and E. vesiculosa in 2002 which were al previously thought to be E. nutans.[2] The species was previously thought to have been the same as Eucalyptus cernua.
See also
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Eucalyptus nutans". FloraBase. Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.
- 1 2 3 N K McQuoid & S D Hopper (2007). "The rediscovery of Eucalyptus nutans F. Muell. from the south coast of Western Australia" (PDF). Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia. Retrieved 28 October 2016.