Bastard jarrah

Description

Eucalyptus botryoides, commonly known as the bangalay, bastard jarrah, woollybutt or southern mahogany, is a small to tall tree native to southeastern Australia. Reaching up to 40 metres (130 feet) high, it has rough bark on its trunk and branches. It is found on sandstone- or shale-based soils in open woodland, or on more sandy soils behind sand dunes. The white flowers appear in summer and autumn. It reproduces by resprouting from its woody lignotuber or epicormic buds after bushfire. E. botryoides hybridises with the Sydney blue gum (E. saligna) in the Sydney region. The hard, durable wood has been used for panelling and flooring. In favourable conditions, Eucalyptus botryoides can grow as a straight-trunked tree to 40 m (130 ft) high with a dbh of 1 m (3.3 ft), although it is often shorter in poorer situations. In exposed areas behind sand dunes, it is a lower spreading tree 6–12 m (20–39 ft) tall, with its leaves forming a dense crown,or even a multitrunked mallee form in poor sandy soils. It has a swollen woody base known as a lignotuber which can reach 6 m (20 ft) in diameter. The thick, fibrous, rough and flaky bark covers the trunk and larger branches, and is vertically furrowed. The bark is more greyish brown in trees of inland forest origin, and a redder brown in those of more coastal origin. The bark on smaller branches is smooth and pale grey. The adult leaves are stalked, broad-lanceolate, to 10 to 16 cm (3.9 to 6.3 in) long by 2–6 cm (0.79–2.36 in) wide, and are dark green above, and paler below. Venation is fine and at 40° – 60° to the midline. Developing from small cylindrical or club-shaped (clavate) buds, the white flowers appear from January to April, and are arranged in groups of six to eleven in umbellasters. The woody fruits, or gumnuts, are ovoid or cylindrical in shape, and measure between 7–12 mm long and 4–6 mm wide, with the valve near the rim or enclosed. Seedlings and young plants have more ovate leaves which are arranged oppositely along the stems for the first three to six pairs until they assume the adult alternately arranged configuration. They are also paler on the undersurface, and measure 4.5 to 11 cm long and 1.3 to 5.5 cm wide.