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Eucalyptus alligatrix subsp. limaensis Brooker, Slee
& J.D.Briggs Austral. Syst. Bot. 8: 510 (1995).
T: Victoria: 0.7 km W of Midland Highway at Swanpool on road to Lima,
13 Apr. 1990, J.D.Briggs 2536; holo: CANB; iso: AD, BRI, K,
MEL, NSW.
Tree to 30 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.
Bark rough to small branches or rarely the branches <8cm diam.
smooth, rough bark thick, fibrous, coarsely furrowed down trunk, dark
grey; branchlets rarely glaucous.
Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm):
stem rounded or square in cross-section, glaucous or non-glaucous,
warty or smooth; juvenile leaves always opposite, sessile, orbicular
or broadly ovate, 2-4.5 cm long, 2.5-5.2 cm wide, margin entire or
crenulate, blue-green, grey-green or glaucous.
Crown composed entirely of narrowly lanceolate adult leaves.
Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.8-2.5 cm long; blade narrowly
lanceolate to falcate, 4.8-19.5 cm long, 0.7-1.8 cm wide, base tapering
to petiole, margin entire, concolorous, glossy or dull, light green
or grey-green, side-veins greater than 45°
to midrib, moderately to densely
reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin,
oil glands numerous, mostly island.
Inflorescences axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.2-0.8 cm long;
buds 3, sessile to shortly pedicellate, ovoid to diamond-shaped, green
or glaucous, sometimes slightly ridged, scar present, operculum conical,
stamens inflexed, anthers cuboid or cuneate, versatile, dorsifixed,
dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long, locules
3 or 4, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows; flowers white.
Fruit sessile or pedicellate, obconical or campanulate, 0.4-0.7
cm wide, disc raised, valves 3 or 4, strongly exserted.
Seed dark grey, brown or blackish, 1-1.6 mm long, ovoid or
flattened-ovoid, often pointed at one end, usually lacunose, dorsal
surface smooth or shallowly pitted, hilum ventral.
Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons bilobed
to oblong; stems rounded or squared in cross-section, glaucous; leaves
sessile and opposite for many nodes, orbicular to cordate, 2-3 cm
long, 2-3.5 cm wide, base amplexicaul to rounded, apex emarginate,
rounded or pointed, glaucous to grey-green.
NOTES
Eucalyptus alligatrix (
Latin alligatrix, she who binds together, refers to the relationship
of the species to E. cinerea and E. cephalocarpa ).
A small to medium-sized tree of undulating to montane south-eastern
Australia inland from the Great Dividing Range.
E. alligatrix has extensive, thick rough fibrous bark, glaucous
juvenile leaves and a crown of adult and intermediate leaves.
It has three subspecies differing in geography and proportion
of adult and sub-adult leaves in the crown:
subsp. alligatrix
From the Eildon - Jamieson - Big River area of Victoria with
buds in 3s and crown a mixture of alternate narrow adult and opposite
broader intermediate leaves.
subsp. limaensis (after the farming district, Lima, in north-east
Victoria, where the subspecies occurrs).
Occurs further north than subsp. alligatrix, only near Swanpool
in Victoria. A taller tree with a completely adult crown of consistently
alternate narrow leaves, buds in 3s and the smallest fruit of the
three subspecies.
subsp. miscella (Latin miscella, mixed, refers to the
3 and 7-flowered inflorescences on the same tree).
Has a very restricted distribution near Rylstone, New South Wales,
and is a smaller spreading woodland tree with a completely adult crown
but with broader leaves than subsp. limaensis. Buds clusters
are a mixture of 3s and 7s on the same tree.
Eucalyptus
alligatrix belongs in Eucalyptus
subgenus Symphyomyrtus section Maidenaria, a large group
of species more or less restricted to south-eastern Australia, characterized
by bilobed cotyledons, simple axillary inflorescences, buds with two
opercula, stamens with versatile anthers and flattened seeds with
a ventral hilum. Within this section, E.
alligatrix belongs in series Argyrophyllae having longitudinally
furrowed fibrous rough bark throughout, orbicular or ovate juvenile
leaves opposite for many nodes and small diamond-shaped buds in 3s
or mixed 3s and 7s. E. alligatrix has a greener, more adult-leaved
crown than E. cinerea and E. conspicua whilst E.
cephalocarpa and E. nova-anglica have buds in 7s. These
5 species form series Argyrophyllae.
USES
Construction timber.
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