Eucalyptus remota

Description

Eucalyptus remota,commonly known as the Kangaroo Island ash,the Kangaroo Island mallee ash,or the Mount Taylor mallee,is a species of plant in the Myrtaceae family that is endemic to South Australia.First described by the botanist William Blakely in 1934 in the journal Key Eucalypts from samples collected by W.Gill in 1907 on Kangaroo Island.The tree has a mallee habit and can grow to a height 15 metres (49 ft) with rough,finely-fissured,fibrous,grey bark on the lower part of the trunk with smooth,grey to yellow-cream bark above.Adult leaves are glossy,dark green to blue-green in colour.The blade is approximately 150 millimetres (6 in) long and 40 mm (1.6 in) wide and has a lanceolate shape.It blooms in summer,between November and February,producing white flowers in groups of 9-21 in axils of the leaves.Later club-shaped buds that are approximately 6 mm (0.24 in) long and 4 mm (0.2 in) wide.It will then form a cup-shaped to cone-shaped fruit containing dark brown to black pyramid-shaped seeds.The species is found on the western end of Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia where it grows on gravelly sands and loams over laterite in low mallee shrubland.It is found from Mount Taylor to Flinders Chase National Park.Although not widely cultivated it is suitable for windbreaks or low shade areas and will grow quickly in sandy,acid type soils.