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Eucalyptus aquilina Brooker, Nuytsia 1: 297 (1974).
T: near Mt Le Grand, W.A., 33°59'S,
122°08'E,
22 Apr. 1972, M.I.H.Brooker 3622; holo: CANB; iso:AD, GAUBA,
K, MEL, NSW, PERTH.
Mallee to 7m tall. Forming a lignotuber.
Bark smooth throughout, pale grey and white.
Branchlets lacking oil glands
in the pith.
Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm):
not seen.
Adult leaves alternate, petioles 1-2 cm long; blade lanceolate
or becoming falcate, 7-13.5 cm long and 1.2-2.5 cm wide, base tapering
to petiole or oblique, margin entire, apex pointed, concolorous, glossy,
dark green, side-veins greater than 45° to midrib, reticulation
dense, intramarginal vein close to margin, oil glands mostly intersectional
and irregular (stellar blobs) plus a few round island glands.
Inflorescences axillary, single, peduncles broadly flattened,
1.2-3.5 cm long and rigidly down-curved or spreading to erect; buds
3, sessile, shortly and broadly ovoid to ± diamond-shaped,
scar absent (but beware – rim of bud may be mistaken for scar),
operculum single, conical to rounded and apiculate, stamens mostly
oblique and distally deflexed but always some irregularly disposed
and flexed, filaments glandular, anthers cuboid, versatile, dorsifixed,
dehiscing by longitudinal slits (non-confluent), style long and twisted
apically or straight, stigma tapered, locules 5(-7), the placentae
each with two vertical ovule rows; flowers white.
Fruit on down-turned peduncles, sessile, broadly obconical,
3.5-5 cm wide, rarely slightly ribbed, disc raised and lobed over
the 5(-7) valves.
Seeds dark greyish black or blackish brown, 2.5-6 mm long,
pyramidal to cuboid, dorsal surface smooth and often lacunose, ridged
ventrally with hilum terminal.
Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform,
large; stems rounded in cross-section, scabrid with rough warts; leaves
sessile, opposite, amplexicaul for at least 10 nodes, broadly elliptical,
4-7.5 cm long, 2-4.5 cm wide, irregular due to marginal warts, the
margins of lower leaves slightly puckered, green, glossy from the
first pair.
NOTES
Eucalyptus aquilina (Latin, aquilinus, of an
eagle, referring to the aquiline disc lobes).
A mallee endemic to Western Australia, restricted to the coastal area
east of Esperance. It is found in shallow valleys, creek beds and
on hillsides in the Mt Le Grand, Frenchman's Peak and Thistle Cove
areas; also on Sandy Hook Island. It occurs in dense heath.
Eucalyptus aquilina belongs in Eucalyptus subgenus Eucalyptus
series Preissianae, a small group characterized by
smooth bark, buds in 3s, buds with a single
operculum (hence no operculum scar), cuboid anthers that shed pollen
by two separate slits, ovules arranged in 2 rows on the placenta,
fruit that are large with the disc lobed over the valves and seed
pyramidal to cuboid and seedlings with sessile, opposite leaves for
at least 10 nodes.
Series Preissianae is comprised of E. aquilina, E. preissiana
, E. coronata and E. megacarpa . The most divergent
species is E. preissiana which has brown seeds and yellow
flowers, but one form, E. preissiana subsp. lobata ,
has fruit very similar to those of the white-flowered E. aquilina.
E. coronata has strongly ribbed buds and fruit, whilst E.
megacarpa has smooth buds, cupular to bell-shaped fruit and is
often a tree.
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