Brown's box | |
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Angiosperms |
Clade: | Eudicots |
Clade: | Rosids |
Order: | Myrtales |
Family: | Myrtaceae |
Genus: | Eucalyptus |
Species: | E. brownii |
Binomial name | |
Eucalyptus brownii Maiden |
Eucalyptus brownii, commonly known as the Brown's box or Reid River box, is a species of eucalypt native to northeastern Australia.
The tree typically grows to a height of 18 metres (59 ft) and has rough bark. The bark is fibrous-flaky with whitish patches, pale and patchy grey or grey-brown in colour and is persistent on the trunk and on the larger branches. The adult leaves disjunct, glossy, green, thick and concolorous. the leaf balade is narrow lanceolate or lanceolate in shape and basally tapered. It produces a terminal or axillary compound conflorescence with seven to eleven flowered umbellasters with terete peduncles. The flowers are a creamy-white colour, and will later produce conical or campanulate shaped fruit.
The species is found in Queensland along the central west coast. It is often found as part of open woodland communities along with Eucalyptus persistens with a shrub layer of Eremophila mitchellii, Psydrax oleifolia, Flindersia maculosa and Lysiphyllum spp. on clay soils in Cainozoic plains or in association with Eucalyptus cambageana, Eucalyptus crebra in woodlands on low metamorphic rises
The species was first formally described by the botanist Joseph Maiden in 1914 as part of the work Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales from samples collect by N. Daley along the Reid River near Townsville in 1912. It is named after the well known botanist ans sceintist Robert Brown. The only known synonym is Eucalyptus bicolor var. parviflora.