Eucalyptus beardiana, commonly known as Beard's mallee, is a mallee that is endemic to Western Australia. It has smooth pinkish bark, narrow lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds usually in groups of nine, pale yellow flowers and down-turned, hemispherical fruit.
Eucalyptus beardiana is a spreading mallee that typically grows to a height of 3to and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth grey, cream-cloloured or pinkish bark from the trunk to the thinnest branches. Young plants and coppice regrowth have dull, narrow lance-shaped leaves NaNsigfig=2NaNsigfig=2 long and NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide and have a petiole. Adult leaves are lance-shaped to curved, mostly NaNsigfig=2NaNsigfig=2 long and NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide, narrowing at the base to a petiole NaNsigfig=2NaNsigfig=2 long.[1] [2] [3]
The flowers are usually borne in groups of nine, rarely eleven, in leaf axils on an unbranched peduncle NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, the individual flowers on a pedicel NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long. Mature buds are oval, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long and NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide with a finely beaked operculum about 14sigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long. Flowering mainly occurs from August to September and the flowers are pale yellow to creamy white. The fruit that follows is a woody, hemispherical capsule 7to long and 9to with a slightly flared rim.
Eucalyptus beardiana was first formally described in 1978 by Ian Brooker and Donald Blaxell who published the description in the journal Nuytsia from a specimen collected near Shark Bay.[4] The specific epithet (beardiana) honours John Stanley Beard. The authors considered it appropriate that "his long association with the botany of Western Australia should be perpetuated by a species endemic to the state".
Beard's mallee grows in tree heath, tall open shrubland in association with species including Yuna mallee, mallalie, Eucalyptus gittinsii, sceptre banksia, Ashby's banksia, broom honey-myrtle as well as other species of Acacia, Grevillea and Persoonia. It is found on sandplain between the Murchison River and Shark Bay.[5]
Eucalyptus beardiana is classified as "endangered" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and as "Threatened Flora (Declared Rare Flora — Extant)" by the Department of Environment and Conservation (Western Australia). The main threat to the species is habitat disturbance due to firebreak and track maintenance and by grazing animals and weed invasion.