Eucalyptus cretata
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Eucalyptus cretata, commonly known as Darke Peak mallee[1] or chalky mallee,[2] is a species of mallee or, rarely, a small, straggly tree and is endemic to a restricted part of South Australia. It has smooth whitish and grey bark, lance-shaped adult leaves, glaucous flower buds in groups of seven, white flowers and cup-shaped to barrel-shaped or conical fruit.
Description
Eucalyptus cretata is a mallee, sometimes a straggly tree, that typically grows to a height of about Template:Cvt and forms a lignotuber. The bark is smooth, grey over coppery underbark, shedding in ribbons, and the branchlets are shiny red or brownish green and glaucous. Young plants and coppice regrowth have glaucous, egg-shaped to broadly lance-shaped leaves that are Template:Cvt long and Template:Cvt wide. Adult leaves are lance-shaped, the same colour on both sides, Template:Cvt long and Template:Cvt wide on a petiole Template:Cvt long. The flower buds are arranged in groups of seven in leaf axils on a peduncle Template:Cvt long, the individual buds on a pedicel up to Template:Cvt long. Mature buds are glaucous, cylindrical to oval, Template:Cvt long and Template:Cvt wide with a striated, conical to rounded operculum. Flowering occurs spasmodically and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody, cup-shaped to barrel-shaped or conical capsule Template:Cvt long and Template:Cvt wide, often glaucous at first, and with the valves at the level of the rim.[1][3][2][4][5]
Taxonomy and naming
Eucalyptus cretata was first formally described in 1990 by Peter Lang and Ian Brooker from a specimen collected by Lang near Darke Peak in 1989. The description was published in the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.[6] The specific epithet (cretata) is a Latin word meaning "marked with chalk",[7] referring to the chalky bloom on the branchlets and flower buds.[3]
Distribution and habitat
Darke Peak mallee grow in mallee communities on the central Eyre Peninsula, between Caralue Bluff Conservation Park, Lock and Cowell.[4]
References
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- ↑ Brooker, I. & Kleinig, D., Eucalyptus, An illustrated guide to identification, Reed Books, Melbourne, 1996
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