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home | glossary | about eucalypts | about EUCLID | browse species Eucalyptus alligatrix subsp. alligatrix |
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Eucalyptus alligatrix L. Johnson & K. Hill , Austral. Syst. Bot. 8: 509 (1995) subsp. alligatrix T: Victoria: Big River, near junction with Taponga River, SW of Jamieson, L. Johnson 7675, 24 April 1973 (NSW) Tree to 15 m tall, rarely multi-stemmed from base. Bark rough to small branches or rarely the branches <8cm diam. smooth, rough bark thick, fibrous, coarsely furrowed down trunk, dark grey; branchlets glaucous or non-glaucous. Juvenile stem rounded or square in cross-section, glaucous or not glaucous, warty or smooth; juvenile leaves always opposite, sessile, orbicular or broadly ovate, 2-4.5 cm long, 2.5-5.2 cm wide, margin entire or crenulate, blue-green, grey-green or glaucous. Crown composed of opposite, petiolate intermediate leaves and alternate adult leaves. Adult leaves petiolate, lanceolate to falcate, 5.4-20 cm long, 1-4.7 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, concolorous, glossy or dull, green, blue-green or grey-green, penniveined, moderately to densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin or well removed from it, oil glands numerous, mostly island. Inflorescences axillary single, peduncles 0.3-0.7 cm long, 3-flowered; buds pedicellate or sessile, ovoid to diamond-shaped, green or glaucous, scar present, operculum conical, stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid or cuneate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows; flowers white. Fruit sessile or shortly pedicellate, cup-shaped, obconical or campanulate, 0.4-0.8 cm wide, sometimes glaucous, disc raised or level, valves 3 or 4, strongly exserted or near rim level. Seed dark brown, 1-2.2 mm long, ovoid or depressed-ovoid, D-shaped or pointed at one end, usually lacunose, dorsal surface smooth or shallowly pitted, hilum ventral. NOTES Eucalyptus alligatrix ( Latin alligatrix, she who binds together, refers to the relationship of the species to E. cinerea and E. cephalocarpa of the same taxonomic series) E. alligatrix is a small to medium-sized tree, one of a group of related rough-barked species which have round, opposite, glaucous juvenile leaves. E. alligatrix has three subspecies: subspecies alligatrix from the Eildon area of Victoria has buds are in threes and the crown usually has a mixture of narrow adult and broader intermediate leaves. subsp. limaensis (after a nearby town, Lima, in central Victoria) from further north near Swanpool in Victoria is a taller tree and has a completely adult crown with consistently narrow leaves, is three-budded and has the smallest fruit of the three subspecies. subsp. miscella (Latin miscella, mixed, refers to the 3 and 7-flowered inflorescences on the same tree) has a very restricted distribution near Rylstone, New South Wales, and is a smaller spreading woodland tree with a completely adult crown but with broader leaves than subsp. limaensis, and has buds in a mixture of threes and sevens on the same tree. |
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