Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Eucalyptus piperita
Common name
Sydney peppermint
Family
Myrtaceae
Where found
Dry forest and woodland, often on alluvial sandy soil. North of Mogo. Coast, ranges, and tablelands. Occasionally elsewhere.
Notes
Tree to 20 m tall. Bark rough on the trunk and larger branches, sometimes also on smaller branches. Rough bark finely fibrous (`peppermint'), grey to grey-brown. Bark smooth above, shedding in long ribbons, often powdery. Juvenile stems rounded in cross section, sometimes warty. Juvenile leaves opposite each other, stem-clasping for about 5-7 pairs, then alternating up the stems, stalked, 4-12.5 cm long, 17-65 mm wide, dull, blue-green, upper and lower surfaces different colours. Adult leaves alternating up the stems, 8-20 cm long, 10-47 mm wide, dull, green to blue-green or grey-green. Flowers white, with 0 petals. Flower clusters 9- to about 15 flowered. Mature flower buds 4–8 mm long, caps at least as long as the base. Flowers Summer-Autumn. Gumnuts 5-8 mm in diameter. Gumnuts that have dropped their seed have valves that are not very noticeable.
The two subspecies described in EUCLID are not recognised by the Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria (accessed 22 January, 2021)
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Eucalyptus~piperita (accessed 22 January, 2021)
EUCLID descriptions: https://apps.lucidcentral.org/euclid/text/entities/eucalyptus_piperita_subsp._piperita.htm (accessed 22 January, 2021)
and https://apps.lucidcentral.org/euclid/text/entities/eucalyptus_piperita_subsp._urceolaris.htm (accessed 22 January, 2021)
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