Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Eucalyptus parvula

Leafy stem, flower buds, and gumnuts, on bark. Photographer Jackie Miles

Seedling. Photographer Jackie Miles

Branch. Photographer Jackie Miles

Mallee. Photographer Jackie Miles

Common name

Small-leaved gum

Family

Myrtaceae

Where found

Grassy woodland on damp flats at high altitude. Ranges and the eastern edge of the tablelands between Deua National Park, Cooma, and Bombala.

Notes

Tree or mallee to 15 m tall.  Bark smooth throughout, or smooth above, with rough bark at the base of the trunk. Rough bark fibrous-flaky or platy, shedding imperfectly, grey to red-brown.  Smooth bark shedding in long ribbons.  Juvenile stems rounded in cross section. Juvenile leaves opposite each other for many pairs, 1.6-4 cm long, 9-13 mm wide, glossy, green.  Crown characteristically retains large numbers of juvenile leaves, with some intermediate and adult leaves. Crown leaves opposite each other or alternating up the stems, 3-8 cm long, 5-15 mm wide, glossy to dull, green.  Flowers white, with 0 petals.  Flower clusters up to 7-flowered.  Mature flower buds 3–5 mm long, caps shorter than the base.  Flowers Summer.  Gumnuts 3-5 mm in diameter. Gumnuts that have dropped their seed have valves that are not very noticeable. 

It may not be strongly self-fertile or inter-fertile with other individuals of the same species and it is common to find individuals in the vicinity that appear to be hybrids, e.g. with Eucalyptus rubida, indicated by some 3-budded flower clusters and larger than normal juvenile leaves.

Vulnerable Australia. Endangered NSW. Provisions of the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 No 63 relating to the protection of protected plants generally also apply to plants that are a threatened species.

NSW Threatened Species profile:  http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedSpeciesApp/profile.aspx?id=10307 (accessed 22 January, 2021)

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

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