Eucalyptus lacrimans

Weeping snowgum

Eucalyptus | Eucalyptus | Cineraceae | Pauciflorae

Eucalyptus lacrimans L.A.S.Johnson & K.D.Hill, Telopea 4: 264 (1991).

T: NSW, Southern Tablelands, 12.6 km N of Rules Point on Long Plain, 27 April 1984, K.D.Hill 740, L.A.S.Johnson & L.D.Pryor; holo: NSW; iso: BRI, CANB, K, MEL.

Tree to 12 m tall. Forming a lignotuber.
Bark smooth mainly white with patches of cream, grey or orange; branchlets glaucous.
Juvenile growth (coppice or field seedlings to 50 cm): stem rounded in cross-section, usually glaucous; juvenile leaves usually petiolate, opposite for 5 or 6 nodes then alternate, petiolate, ovate to lanceolate, 6.5–11 cm long, 2.2–4 cm wide, green to blue-green.
Adult leaves alternate, petiole 0.5–2.5 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate to falcate, 7–18 cm long, 0.7–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, parallel-veined, sparsely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin or well removed from it, oil glands island or obscure.
Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.3–1.2 cm long, buds 9 to ?15 per umbel, sessile or on pedicels to 0.3 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to globular to pyriform, 0.6–0.8 cm long, 0.4–0.5 cm wide, green and red, or glaucous, scar absent, operculum rounded to conical, stamens inflexed or irregularly flexed, anthers reniform to cordate, versatile, dorsifixed, dehiscing by confluent slits, style long, stigma blunt or tapered, locules 3 or 4, the placentae each with 2 vertical ovule rows. Flowers white.
Fruit sessile or on pedicels to 0.3 cm long, cup-shaped, obconical or barrel-shaped, 0.7–1.1 cm long, 0.8–1.1 cm wide, glaucous, or non-glaucous, disc level, valves 3 or 4, enclosed.
Seeds dark brown, 1.5–2.2 mm long, pyramidal or obliquely pyramidal, dorsal surface smooth, hilum terminal.

Cultivated seedlings (measured at ca node 10): cotyledons reniform; stems rounded in cross-section, glaucous; leaves sessile to shortly petiolate, elliptic and opposite for 5 or 6 pairs then alternate, ovate-lanceolate, 7.5–9.5 cm long, 2.5–4.5 cm wide, base tapering, margin entire, apex pointed, dull, blue-grey to grey-green.

Flowering has been recorded in January and December.

Eucalyptus lacrimans is a small tree with a sparse crown, restricted to localised patches on the high plains of the Adaminaby – Kiandra – Rules Point district of southern, subalpine New South Wales. One of several snow gums distinguished by the parallel venation of the leaves, it differs from E. pauciflora by the relatively slender trunks, open crowns and pendulous branches. It tends to grow in small pure stands. Another snow-gum species, E. gregsoniana, localized in the Blue Mountains, differs in being a mallee and has narrower juvenile leaves.

Eucalyptus lacrimans belongs in subgenus Eucalyptus section Cineraceae series Pauciflorae having the following characters: cotyledons reniform, juvenile leaves alternate, bluish to glaucous, adult leaves with side-veins parallel to the midrib, single axillary inflorescences with buds in clusters of nine to 15, buds with single operculum, usually inflexed stamens with reniform anthers, ovules in two rows, and seeds more or less pyramidal. The species in series Pauciflorae are E. pauciflora, E. lacrimans and E. gregsoniana and their differences are discussed above.

Eucalyptus lacrimans: Latin lacrimans, weeping, referring to the pendulous branchlets.