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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Myrtaceae
Eucalyptus porosa

Citation: F. Muell. ex Miq., Nederl. Kruidk. Arch. 4:132 (1856).

Synonymy: E. odorata Behr ex Schldl. var. calcicultrix F. Muell. ex Miq., Nederl. Kruidk. Arch. 4:129 (1856); E. calcicultrix (F. Muell. ex Miq.) F. Muell. ex Blakely, Key Eucalypts 224 (1934); E. calcicultrix (F. Muell. ex Miq.) F. Muell. ex Blakely var. porosa (F. Mtiell. ex Miq.) Blakely, Key Eucalypts 224 (1934); E. leucoxylon F. Muell. var. pluriflora F. Muell. ex Miq., Nederl. Kruidk. Arch. 4:127 (1856).

Common name: Mallee box, black (or South Australian) mallee box, water (or Quorn or lerp) mallee, swamp box.

Description:
Multi- or less often single-stemmed trees to 10 m high; bark rough, greyish-brown, subfibrous, in small plates, with smooth upper stems and branches; cotyledons notched or reniform; juvenile leaves opposite to alternate, petiolate, oblong or elliptic to ovate; adult leaves alternate, on petioles 6-15 mm long, narrow- to broad-lanceolate, glossy, a fresh lettuce-green, 6-9 x 0.6-2.5 cm.

Flowers in umbels of 3-7 in the axils of the leaves; buds on pedicels 1-6 mm long, obovoid or narrow-obovoid, smooth but wrinkling on drying, 5-7 x 3-4 mm; operculum conical or hemispherical, usually a little shorter than the hypanthium; flowers white; anthers all fertile, globular-reniform.

Fruits hemispherical-obovoid, thick-walled, with a narrow rim and descending disk, 5-8 x 5-6 mm; valves small, enclosed; seeds reddish-brown or dark-grey, irregularly shaped, not winged, conspicuously reticulate.

Published illustration: Costermans (1981) Native trees and shrubs of south-eastern Australia, p. 366; Hall & Brooker (1974) Forest tree series, no. 134.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: GT, FR, EA, EP, NL, MU, YP, SL, KI, SE.   N.S.W.; Vic.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Oct. — March.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: Leaf colour, which is a good field character for distinguishing this species from E. odorata, is not discernible on dried material. The buds of E. porosa tend to have a more smoothly swollen outline compared with the narrower and more angular outline of E. odorata buds which also often have a somewhat angular hypanthium.

Author: Not yet available


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