Citation: Blakely, Proc. R. Soc. S. Aust. 60:153 (1936).

Synonymy: E. eudesmioides sensu J. Black, Fl. S. Aust. 632 (1952), non F. Muell.

Common name: Marble gum, desert gum.

Description:
Single-stemmed trees occasionally up to 20 m high but usually about half this height; bark smooth, whitish, with scattered yellow-brown flakes of shedding bark; cotyledons suborbicular; juvenile leaves opposite, petiolate, waxy, lanceolate below but becoming ovate higher, with numerous branched hairs; adult leaves opposite or alternate, on petioles 3-6 mm long, more or less lanceolate, 4-7 x 1-2 cm, glaucous at first but becoming grey-green as the wax is lost; veins faint.

Flowers in pedunculate umbels of 4-9 in leaf axils; buds on pedicels 3-6 mm long, subglobular to pear-shaped or clavate, 3-5 x 3-4 mm; operculum hemispherical, somewhat truncate, shorter than the hypanthium; flowers white or creamy; anthers all fertile, obovate.

Fruit woody, subglobular, somewhat truncate at the apex and base, with a rounded to square orifice upon which 4 microscopic teeth are mounted when newly ripe, 6-12 x 6-10 mm, glaucous at first; disk narrow, grey, oblique, descending; valves deeply included, 3; seeds somewhat triquetrous, with flattened almost wing-like margins, reticulate, grey-black.

Published illustration: Boomsma & Lewis (1980) Native forest and woodland vegetation of South Australia, p. 39; Jessop (1981) Flora of central Australia, pl. 5.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NW.   W.Aust.; N.T. Conservation status: native Flowering time: at all times of the year after rains.

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

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available