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home | glossary | about eucalypts | about EUCLID | browse species Eucalyptus delegatensis subsp. delegatensis |
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Alpine ash, Gum-topped stringybark, White-top |
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Eucalyptus delegatensis R.Baker, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales 25: 305 t. 16 (1900) subsp. delegatensis. T: Delegate Mtn, N.S.W., Jan. 1899, W.Bäuerlen s.n.; lecto: NSW, fide D.J.Boland, Austral. Forest Res. 15: 174 (1985). E. obliqua var. alpina Maiden, Proc. Assoc. Adv. Sci. 9: 369 (1903). T: not clearly designated. Tree to 50 m (rarely 90 m) tall. Bark rough on part of trunk, often furrowed, stringy or fibrous, grey to black, sometimes with horizontal black scars; smooth bark white, cream, yellow, grey or grey-green, often with scribbles, occasionally with ribbons of decorticated bark in the upper branches, branchlets glaucous or non -glaucous. Juvenile stem rounded in cross-section, glaucous or non-glaucous; juvenile leaves opposite, shortly petiolate, for 4-5 nodes becoming alternate, petiolate, broadly lanceolate to ovate, 7-20 cm long, 2.7-8.2 cm wide, pendulous, blue-green. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1-4.5 cm long, lanceolate to falcate, 7.5-23 cm long, 1.3-5.5 cm wide, base oblique or tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green to blue-green, weakly penniveined, sparsely to moderately reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from margin, oil glands mostly island. Inflorescences axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.8-2 cm long, 7-15-flowered; buds pedicellate, clavate, green to yellow to red, scar absent, operculum conical or rounded and apiculate, stamens inflexed or irregularly flexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits (usually), style long, stigma tapered, locules 3 or 4(5), the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows; flowers white. Fruit pedicellate, barrel-shaped or hemispherical, 0.6-1.1 cm wide, rarely glaucous, disc level or descending, valves 3 or 4(5), near rim level or enclosed. Seed brown, 1.5-3 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal. NOTES E. delegatensis is medium-sized to tall forest tree of high mountain country in southern New South Wales and eastern Victoria and of lower terrain in Tasmania. A blue-leaved ash, it is distinguished by the juvenile leaves which are conspicuously pendulous, by the rough bark, single axillary inflorescences with > 7 buds and the barrel-shaped fruit. The new growing tips on seedlings and saplings are notably orange-red. There are two subspecies: subsp. delegatensis (after the town of Delegate) occurs on the mainland in Victoria and New South Wales. It is half-barked and has broadly lanceolate to falcate juvenile leaves. subsp. tasmaniensis (after the distribution of the subspecies) is rough over the whole trunk and has smaller, rounder juvenile leaves. It is endemic to Tasmania. Other species of blue-leaved ash with finely fibrous rough bark are E. andrewsii, a montane and tableland species of northern New South Wales into Queensland; E. consideniana, a fully rough-barked species of coastal and sub-coastal southern New South Wales and Gippsland in Victoria; and E. remota, endemic to Kangaroo Island in South Australia. In Tasmania subsp. tasmaniensis is the only blue-leaved ash species and is easily distinguished from nearby peppermints with similar finely fibrous bark by the seedlings with alternate, petiolate leaves. USES Gums, honey, building framing, flooring, plywood, veneers, furniture panelling, turnery, handles, pulp for hardboard and paper. |
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