Eucalyptus dawsonii, known as slaty gum[1] or slaty box,[2] is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to a small area of New South Wales. It has smooth, white, grey or yellow bark, sometimes with a short stocking of rough, flaky bark, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven on a branching inflorescence, white flowers and conical to barrel-shaped fruit.
Eucalyptus dawsonii is a tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth white, grey or yellow bark that is shred in short ribbons, sometimes with a short stocking of rough, flaky greyish bark. Young plants and coppice regrowth have dull bluish green, more or less round or triangular leaves long and wide. Adult leaves are lance-shaped to curved, the same dull colour on both surfaces, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged on a branching peduncle long, each branch with a group of seven buds, the individual buds on a pedicel long. Mature buds are oval, long, wide and glaucous with a conical operculum. Flowering has been observed in March and November and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody conical to barrel-shaped capsule long and wide on a pedicel up to long and with the valves near rim level or enclosed in the fruit.[3] [4]
Eucalyptus dawsonii was first formally described in 1899 by Richard Thomas Baker from a specimen he collected from "ridges on the watershed of the Goulburn River". The description was published in Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales.[5] [6] The specific epithet (dawsonii) honours "Mr. James Dawson, L.S., of Rylstone" who collected plant specimens in that area.[7]
Slaty gum mainly grows in tall woodland between Scone and the Capertee Valley.