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Eucalyptus alligatrix subsp. miscella Brooker, Slee
& J.D.Briggs, Austral. Syst. Bot. 8: 512 (1995).
T: New South Wales: "Coomber" Farm, SW of Rylstone, 24 Aug.
1992, M.I.H. Brooker 11147; holo: CANB; iso: BRI, MEL, NSW.
Tree to 15 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,
grey; branchlets rarely glaucous.
Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm):
stem rounded or square in cross-section, usually glaucous; juvenile
leaves always opposite, sessile, orbicular to ovate, 2-4.5 cm long,
2.5-5 cm wide, margin entire or crenulate, green to grey-green or
glaucous.
Crown composed entirely of adult leaves which are alternate,
petiole 1-2 cm long; blade lanceolate, 8-17 cm long, 0.8-2.8 cm wide,
base tapering to petiole, margin entire, concolorous, glossy, green
to grey-green, side-veins greater than 45°
to midrib, moderately to densely
reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin,
oil glands mostly island.
Inflorescences axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.4-1 cm long;
buds 3 or 7, pedicellate or rarely sessile, diamond-shaped, slightly
glaucous or green, 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 pedicellate or sessile, obconical or campanulate, 0.5-0.6
cm wide, disc raised, valves 3 or 4, strongly exserted.
Seed brown, 1-1.5 mm long, ovoid or flattened-ovoid, usually
lacunose, dorsal surface 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, 2-4.5 cm
long, 1.2-4.5 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.
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