Eucalyptus stellulata

Black Sallee
Sub-parallel leaf venation of Eucalyptus stellulata
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Myrtales
Family:	Myrtaceae
Genus:	Eucalyptus
Species:	E. stellulata
Binomial name
Eucalyptus stellulata Sieber ex DC.

Eucalyptus stellulata, the Black Sallee or Black Sally is a high altitude tree found in south eastern Australia. Found from near the border of New South Wales and Queensland, down the Great Dividing Range to the eastern highland parts of Victoria.

“Stellulata” refers to the star-shaped clusters of the flower buds, which form between April and October.

Description

A small to medium sized tree, up to 15 metres in height. A common plant in grassy eucalyptus woodland. Often near swamps and by streams. The soils are usually of a relatively good fertility.

Bark is dark and rough at the base. About halfway up the tree, the bark sheds revealing smooth branches, of a yellowish olive green, somewhat oily to the touch.

Juvenile leaves are opposite on the stem, round and stalk-less. Mature leaves are 5 to 9 cm long, 1.3 to 2.5 cm wide, lanceolate to egg shaped. The same colour green above and below the leaf. Leaf veins are almost parallel and glossy.^[1] Gumnuts are stalkless, cup shaped or truncate-globose around half a centimetre in diameter with three enclosed valves.^[2]

This plant first appeared in scientific literature in the year 1828, in the Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis. Authored by the prominent Swiss botanist, Augustin Pyramus de Candolle.

References