Eucalyptus varia

Description

Mallee to 7 m tall. Forming a lignotuber. Bark smooth throughout, grey over greenish brown and pink to pale coppery. Branchlets usually lacking pith glands, rarely 1 or 2 at nodes. Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): not seen. Adult leaves alternate, petioles 0.8–1.5 cm; blade narrowly lanceolate, 4.8–9 cm long, 0.9–2 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, dull and bluish green maturing slightly glossy and green inside the crown, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation moderate to dense, intramarginal vein usually remote from margin, oil glands mostly island. Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles widening apically, 1–1.7 cm long, buds?9 or 11, pedicellate (pedicels 0.3–0.5 cm long). Mature buds long-fusiform and slightly curved (1.6–2.7 cm long, 0.2–0.5 cm wide), scar present, operculum horn-shaped, about three times the length of the hypanthium and equal to it in width at the join, few outer stamens erect, most stamens variably deflexed, anthers oblong, dorsifixed, dehiscing by longitudinal slits, style long and straight, stigma blunt to rounded, locules 3, the placentae each with 4 vertical rows of ovules. Flowers yellow. Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.2–0.5 cm long), barrel-shaped to cylindrical, 0.7–1.1 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, disc descending vertically, valves 3, at rim level or enclosed. Seeds pale brown or straw-coloured, 1–2 mm long, usually sub-spherical, surface smooth, hilum ventral/terminal.