Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Eucalyptus polybractea
Common name
Blue-leaved Mallee, Blue Mallee
Family
Myrtaceae
Where found
Mallee shrubland, rocky areas, and moist sites. West Wyalong district and west.
Notes
Mallee to 10 m tall. Bark wholly smooth, or rough on the lower 1–2 m of the branches. Rough bark fibrous-flaky (`box'), grey to grey-brown. Smooth bark shedding in short ribbons. Branchlets usually glaucous or rarely non-glaucous. Juvenile stems rounded or square in cross section, glaucous or non-glaucous. Juvenile leaves opposite each other for 4-7 pairs then alternating up the stems, 4–15 cm long, 2–16 mm wide, dull, grey to blue-grey or blue-green or glaucous. Adult leaves alternating up the stems, 5–17 cm long, 4–20 mm wide, dull, grey, grey-green, blue-grey, bluish-green, or glaucous. Flowers white, with 0 petals. Mature flower buds 4–8 mm long, caps shorter than or as long as the base. Flower clusters 5–11-flowered, usually at the bases of the leaves, but sometimes forming compound clusters at the ends of the branchlets. Flowers autumn–spring. Gumnuts 3–5 mm in diameter. Gumnuts that have dropped their seed have valves that are not very noticeable.
Rare Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Eucalyptus~polybractea (accessed 22 January, 2021)
EUCLID description: https://apps.lucidcentral.org/euclid/text/entities/eucalyptus_polybractea.htm (accessed 22 January, 2021)
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