Poplar box
| Eucalyptus populnea | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Myrtales |
| Family: | Myrtaceae |
| Genus: | Eucalyptus |
| Species: | E. populnea |
| Binomial name | |
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Eucalyptus populnea F. Muell. |
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| Distribution of Eucalyptus populnea | |
| Synonyms | |
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Eucalyptus populnea, commonly known as Poplar box or Bimble box is an endemic tree of Australia. It is found in central and coastal Queensland to central New South Wales. It can reach up to 25 metres tall and forms extensive open-forest communities in arid and semi-arid regions. The species is characterised by glossy, rounded dark green leaves.
The bark is persistent on trunk and larger branches, grey with whitish patches, fibrous-flaky ('box'), smooth above, glossy, grey, shedding in short ribbons. Juvenile leaves petiolate, opposite for a few pairs then alternate, disjunct, ovate to orbiculate, dull grey-green. Adult leaves petiolate, alternate, disjunct, broad-lanceolate, elliptic, ovate or rhomboidal, 5–11 cm long, 2–7 cm wide, green, glossy, concolorous, densely reticular. Conflorescence compound; umbellasters 7–11-flowered; peduncle terete, 5–11 mm long; pedicels terete, 1–3 mm long. Buds clavate to ovoid, 3–5 mm long, 2–3 mm diam., scar present; calyptra hemispherical to conical, shorter than and as wide as hypanthium. All stamens fertile. Anthers adnate, basifixed, oblong or globoid, opening by broad lateral pores; flowers white; flowering period February–March. Fruit shortly pedicellate, hemispherical or conical, 2–4 mm long, 2–5 mm diam.; disc depressed; valves usually four and enclosed or rim-level.
The species was first formally described by botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in Monograph in the Eucalypti of tropical Australia in 1858. The specific epithet populnea is the latin adjective in reference to the poplar-like foliage.
Common names recorded include bimble box, poplar box, round-leaf box, bimbil box, red box, white box, egolla, nankeen gum, round-leaved box, shiny-leaf box and bimbil.
Lawrie Johnson and Kenneth Hill in 1990 published New taxa and combinations in Eucalyptus and Angophora (Myrtaceae) in Telopea 4(1), where they described and named the subspecies E. populnea subsp. bimbil.
Many hybrids of the species are known in nature. Hybrids are recorded from Queensland between E. populnea and E. crebra, E. melanophloia and E. largiflorens. It is here in the north of its range that it intergrades with the closely related E. brownii which is very similar in appearance with more lanceolate leaves. Within New South Wales hybrids between E. coolabah and E. populnea are recorded.
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