Eucalyptus melanophloia F.Muell.
MYRTACEAE
Synonymy
Common Name: Eucalyptus, Silver-leaved Ironbark
Description: Usually a tree to 20 m tall, sometimes a mallee, only 4 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Ironbark to the smallest branches, dark grey or black, deeply furrowed longitudinally; branchlets usually glaucous. Ironbark less well developed on the mallee form though still fissured and grey. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded or square in cross section, usually glaucous; smooth, juvenile leaves opposite, sessile or very shortly petiolate, orbicular to ovate or cordate, 2-10 cm long, 1.3-10 cm wide, glaucous. Crown usually of juvenile leaves, uncommonly forming lanceolate adult leaves. Crown leaves opposite, sessile, ovate to cordate or lanceolate, 3.5-9 cm long, 2-5 cm wide, usually flat, base lobed, concolorous, dull, glaucous weathering to grey-green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein remote from margin and looped, oil glands intersectional or obscure. Inflorescences terminal panicles or sometimes compound in subterminal leaf axils, peduncles 0.5-1.5 cm long; buds 7 per umbel, pedicels 0.2-0.9 cm long. Mature buds diamond-shaped to ovoid, 0.5-0.6 cm long, 0.3-0.4 cm wide, glaucous, scar present, operculum conical, stamens irregularly flexed, anthers adnate, cuboid to globoid, dehiscing by broad lateral pores or slits, style long, stigma pin-head shaped, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white. Fruit on pedicels to 0.9 cm long, rarely sessile, cup-shaped, truncate-globose or hemispherical, 0.3-0.7 cm long, 0.3-0.8 cm wide, glaucous or non-glaucous, disc descending, valves 3 or 4, near rim level or enclosed. Seed brown, 1-2 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.
Similar Taxa: Eucalyptus melanophloia is one of two ironbark species that are very conspicuous in having a crown of glaucous, round to ovate, opposite, sessile leaves. The other, E. shirleyi, is endemic to northern Queensland and has larger leaves, buds and fruit.
Distribution
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Specimens
Observations
Cultivated
Introduced Status: Native to NT
Distribution Notes: A small to medium-sized ironbark tree or rarely a mallee from the eastern half of Queensland to the western side of the Dividing Range in northern New South Wales, widely distributed from the Mareeba area in North Queensland south to just north from Dubbo in Northern New South Wales, with three disjunct populations, one in the Dajarra region south of Mt Isa and another west of Musgrave on Cape York Peninsula in North Queensland and a third from north-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory (see note below).It has recently come to our attention that specimens of Eucalyptus melanophloia have been collected in arid areas of the Northern Territory, from four localities north-west of Alice Springs, at Yaripilangu Range north-east of Newhaven Homestead, and at three sites east of the Lander River namely Ennugon Mountains on Ti-tree Station, Mount Leichhardt and Mount Denison (information fide Dave Albrecht, Northern Territory Herbarium, Alice Springs).
Bioregion: Einasleigh Uplands, Nandewar
Ecological Attributes
Flowering: June - Aug, Dec - Feb
Fruiting: May, Sep
Other Attributes
Conservation Status (TPWCA): Near Threatened
Etymology: Eucalyptus melanophloia: Greek melano-, black and phloios, bark.
Flora Description Source: Eucalypts of Australia
PDF Factsheet
Specimens