Eucalyptus prava

A tree to 15 m tall, with a trunk that is often rather twisted.

It occurs on the northern tablelands of NSW, from mostly as far south as Tamworth, extending just into Queensland south of Warwick. There is an outlying population further south near Murrurundi.

It is often found on skeletal soils – mainly sand and granite in dry sclerophyll woodland.

The bark is smooth and comes in a range of colours: patchy grey, grey-brown, orange and red-brown. In spring the bark is shed in large plates or flakes. This is when the orange colour is most vivid (hence the common name). As the year progresses this colour fades.

Eucalyptus spp. have simple and usually alternate adult leaves with juvenile leaves starting off opposite to alternate (disjunct). In this species, ovate to orbicular, to about 10 cm long and 7 cm wide, dull blue-green. Adult leaves are falcalte-lanceolate, to 16 cm long and 4 cm wide, dull grey-green to bluish-green.

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, large white flowers are produced in umbellasters of 5-7, in late spring and summer; the preceeding buds are ovoid to cylindrical, to 1.5 cm long with long horned to conical opercula.

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, they are hemispherical, about 1 cm wide by 1 cm long, with strongly exserted valves.