Eucalyptus cypellocarpa, commonly known as mountain grey gum, mountain gum, monkey gum or spotted mountain grey gum,[1] is a species of straight, smooth-barked forest tree that is endemic to southeastern Australia. It has relatively large, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, white flowers and usually cylindrical or barrel-shaped fruit.
Eucalyptus cypellocarpa is a tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth white, grey or yellowish bark that is shed in long ribbons. Young plants and coppice regrowth have stems that are square in cross-section, and sessile, lance-shaped to heart-shaped or egg-shaped leaves that long and wide. Adult leaves are lance-shaped to curved, usually the same glossy green on both surfaces, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of seven on a peduncle long, the individual buds sessile or on a pedicel up to long. Mature buds are green to yellow, oblong to oval, long and wide with a conical to beaked operculum. Flowering occurs from January to June and from October to November and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody cylindrical or barrel-shaped, sometimes cup-shaped or hemispherical capsule long and wide and sessile or on a pedicel up to long. The valves of the fruit are usually below rim level.[2] [3] [4]
Eucalyptus cypellocarpa was first formally described in 1962 by the Australian botanist Lawrie Johnson who collected the type specimen at "Sawmill to Wynne's Rocks, Mt. Wilson, 3,100 feet".[5] The specific epithet (cypellocarpa) means "cup-fruit".
Mountain gum is found in New South Wales and Victoria where it tends to grow in wet sclerophyll forest, in gullies and on mid-altitude hillsides, from 30.25 to 39 degrees south. It grows from near sea level altitudes to and in cool to warm, humid to sub-humid environments with a temperature distribution of with an annual rainfall of . In New South Wales it is widespread in wet forests south from Tamworth, and in Victoria it is widespread in the south-east, including in the Black Range, Grampians and Pyrenees.