Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Eucalyptus nitens

Gumnuts and leaves. Photographer Jackie Miles

Trunks. Photographer Peter Woodard, New England National Park west of Bellingen

Line drawings. e. juvenile (right) and adult (left) leaves; buds and gumnuts. KR Thiele, Australian National Herbarium, © 2021 Royal Botanic Gardens Board, Melbourne, Vic

Common name

Shining gum, Silvertop

Family

Myrtaceae

Where found

Wet forest and rainforest margins. Ranges and tablelands south of Captains Flat.

Notes

Tree to 70 m tall.  Bark smooth throughout, or with a thin stocking of rough fibrous-flaky grey bark on the basal 1 m of the trunk.  Smooth bark shedding in long ribbons, sometimes with horizontal black scars.  Juvenile stems square in cross section and prominently winged, glaucous or non-glaucous.  Juvenile leaves opposite each other, stem-clasping for many pairs (until the sapling stage), 6.5-18 cm long, 28-95 mm wide, usually blue-green or glaucous.  Adult leaves alternating up the stems, 10-30 cm long, 15-40 mm wide, glossy, green, margins entire.  Flowers white, with 0 petals.  Flower clusters 7-flowered.  Mature flower buds 5–7 mm long, caps shorter than the base.  Flowers Summer-Autumn.  Gumnuts 4-7 mm in diameter, faintly angled longitudinally. Gumnuts that have dropped their seed have valves that are not very noticeable or protruding somewhat. 

Intergrades with Eucalyptus denticulata where the two species grow close together.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Eucalyptus~nitens  (accessed 22 January, 2021) 

EUCLID description:  https://apps.lucidcentral.org/euclid/text/entities/eucalyptus_nitens.htm  (accessed 22 January, 2021)