Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
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Eucalyptus obliqua
Messmate, Messmate stringybark
Myrtaceae
Forest and grassy areas. Ranges, tablelands, and ACT. Coastal, but rarely coastal north of Eden.
Tree to 90 m tall, sometimes a mallee. Bark rough on all but the smallest branches or sometimes the branches less than 8 cm diameter smooth. Rough bark stringy or fibrous, longitudinally furrowed, brown to grey brown or red-brown. Smooth bark shedding in ribbons. Juvenile stems rounded or square in cross section, warty or smooth. Juvenile leaves opposite each other for 2-7 pairs, then alternating up the stems, 6-21 cm long, 23-85 mm wide, glossy, green. Adult leaves alternating up the stems, 6-22 cm long, 15-70 mm wide, glossy, green. Flowers white, with 0 petals. Flower clusters 11-15+ flowered. Mature flower buds 4–9 mm long, caps shorter than the base. Flowers most of the year. Gumnuts 5-11 mm in diameter. Gumnuts that have dropped their seed have valves that are not very noticeable.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Eucalyptus~obliqua (accessed 22 January, 2021)
EUCLID description: https://apps.lucidcentral.org/euclid/text/entities/eucalyptus_obliqua.htm (accessed 22 January, 2021)
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