Eucalyptus lacrimans explained

Eucalyptus lacrimans, commonly known as weeping snow gum, is a species of small tree that is endemic to New South Wales. It has smooth white bark, lance-shaped adult leaves with more or less parallel veins, flower buds in groups of seven to eleven or more, white flowers and cup-shaped, conical or barrel-shaped fruit.

Description

Eucalyptus lacrimans is a tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth white bark with patches of cream or grey and its branchlets are glaucous. It has a sparse crown with weeping branches. Young plants and coppice regrowth have egg-shaped to lance-shaped leaves that are long and wide. Adult leaves are the same glossy green on both sides and have more or less parallel veins. The leaves are lance-shaped to curved, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of seven, nine, eleven or more on an unbranched peduncle long, the individual buds sessile or on pedicels up to long. Mature buds are oval to more or less spherical or pear-shaped, long and wide with a rounded to conical operculum. Flowering occurs between December and January and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody cup-shaped, conical or barrel-shaped capsule long and wide with the valves enclosed below the rim.[1] [2]

Taxonomy and naming

Eucalyptus lacrimans was first formally described in 1991 by Laawrie Johnson and Ken Hill from a specimen collected on the Long Plain in 1984 and the description was published in the journal Telopea.[3] The specific epithet (lacrimans) is a Latin word meaning 'weeping', in reference to the distinctive weeping branches of this species.

Distribution and habitat

The weeping snow gum grows on more or less flat, treeless plains in subalpine areas near Adaminaby, Kiandra and Rules Point in southern New South Wales.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Eucalyptus lacrimans . Euclid: Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research . 1 June 2020.
  2. Johnson . Lawrence A.S. . Hill . Ken . Systematic studies in the eucalypts - 3. New taxa in Eucalyptus (Myrtaceae) . Telopea . 1991 . 4 . 2 . 264–266.
  3. Web site: Eucalyptus lacrimans. APNI. 10 August 2019.