Eucalyptus oligantha, commonly known as the broad-leaved box, is a species of tree that is native to the Kimberley region of Western Australia and parts of the Northern Territory. It has rough, fibrous or flaky greyish bark, broadly egg-shaped to almost round adult leaves that are lost in the dry season, flower buds in groups of three or seven, creamy yellow to whitish flowers and cup-shaped to more or less cylindrical, bell-shaped or conical fruit.
Eucalyptus oligantha is a tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has rough, fibrous, flaky or scaly greyish bark on the trunk and branches. Young plants and coppice regrowth have egg-shaped to more or less round leaves long, wide and petiolate. Adult leaves are broadly egg-shaped to more or less round and are usually lost in the dry season. They are usually the same shade of green on both sides, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are mostly arranged on the end of branchlets on a thin, branched peduncle in groups of three or seven. The peduncle is long, the individual buds on pedicels long. Mature buds are oval to pear-shaped, long and wide with a usually conical operculum. Flowering has been recorded in March, July and September and the flowers are creamy yellow to whitish. The fruit is a woody, cup-shaped to more or less cylindrical, bell-shaped or conical capsule long and wide with the valves either level with the rim or strongly protruding.[1] [2]
Eucalyptus oligantha was first formally described in 1843 by Johannes Conrad Schauer in Walpers' Repertorium Botanices Systematicae.[3] [4] The specific epithet (oligantha) is from the ancient Greek oligos meaning "few" and -anthus meaning "-flowered".[5] [6]
Broad-leaved box grows on flats and slopes, often near watercourses in forest and woodland in the Kimberley region between Wyndham and Derby with a few scattered populations in the Northern Territory, including some of its offshore islands.
This eucalypt is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.