Eucalyptus fracta

A small tree, to around 8 metres, or a mallee. It has grey-black ironbark on its trunk and larger branches with smooth whitish bark on smaller branches. Mature trees show the typical ironbark trunks, while the smaller, upper branches are smooth and whitish.

It is endemic to the Hunter Valley in NSW, found primarily along the Broken Back Range near Pokolbin, with scattered populations along the southern escarpment of the valley. It is found growing along the edges of the escarpment. Plants closer to the edge of cliffs tend to grow more as a mallee, with those further from the edge growing as trees.

It grows mainly in sandy dry sclerophyll woodland to shrubland.

It is a listed threatened species in the wild.

Eucalyptus spp. have simple and usually alternate adult leaves with juvenile leaves starting off opposite to alternate (disjunct). In this species, juvenile leaves are round and blue green in colour. Adult leaves more spear-shaped to lanceolate, to 11 cm long and 2.5 cm wide, grey-green and glossy.

The primary inflorescence of “eucalypts” (Angophora / Corymbia / Eucalyptus) is an umbellaster (an umbel-like cluster of flowers). In the flowers of Corymbia and Eucalyptus, the petals and sepals are fused into the distinctive calyptra / operculum (bud cap) which is shed when the flower opens (in some species, 2 bud caps (opercula) are shed). The flowers are conspicuously staminate – where many stamens are basically taking over the role of the petals, all surrounding one central carpel. In this species, the flower buds are clustered in umbellasters of 7, which are arranged in secondary groups in leaf axils, which mature to white flowers in spring.

The fruit of eucalypts are a woody capsule (commonly called ‘gum nuts’) which come in a wide variety of shapes with the top part having a sunken, flat or raised disc and with the valves inserted, disc-level, exserted to strongly exserted. In this species, the capsule is cup-shaped, to 8 mm long and 7 mm wide.