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Eucalyptus caesia

 

 
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Eucalyptus caesia
 
 
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Eucalyptus caesia, commonly known as Caesia, Gungurru or Silver Princess, is a mallee
Mallee

Mallee may refer to:* Mallee , the habit of woody plants that grow with multiple stems from underground lignotubers* Mallee , a biogeographic region in southern Western Australia...
 of the Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of Flowering plant trees in the Myrtus family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia....
 genus. It is endemic
Endemic

Endemic, in a broad sense, can mean "belonging" or "native to", "characteristic of", or "prevalent in" a particular geography, race, field, area, or Natural environment; native to an area or scope....
 to the central Wheatbelt region of Western Australia
Western Australia

Western Australia is a States and territories of Australia occupying the entire western third of the Australia . The nation's largest state and the second largest subnational entity in the world, it has 2.1 million inhabitants , 85% of whom live in the south-west corner of the state....
, where it is found on a small number of granite outcrops
Granite outcrops of Western Australia

Granite outcrops of Western Australia are inselbergs and monoliths made from granite that are found across much of Western Australia. Rising abruptly from the surrounding landscape they create a variety of microhabitats for plants, and provide seasonal resources and refuge for a range of animals....
. The name "silver" refers to the white powder that covers the branches, flower buds and fruit. "Gungurru" comes from the name used by the indigenous Noongar
Noongar

The Noongar , are an indigenous Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia from Geraldton, Western Australia on the west coast to Esperance, Western Australia on the south coast....
 people. Two subspecies have been identified: caesia (about 6–9 metres tall) and magna (up to 15 metres tall).






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Eucalyptus caesia, commonly known as Caesia, Gungurru or Silver Princess, is a mallee
Mallee

Mallee may refer to:* Mallee , the habit of woody plants that grow with multiple stems from underground lignotubers* Mallee , a biogeographic region in southern Western Australia...
 of the Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of Flowering plant trees in the Myrtus family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia....
 genus. It is endemic
Endemic

Endemic, in a broad sense, can mean "belonging" or "native to", "characteristic of", or "prevalent in" a particular geography, race, field, area, or Natural environment; native to an area or scope....
 to the central Wheatbelt region of Western Australia
Western Australia

Western Australia is a States and territories of Australia occupying the entire western third of the Australia . The nation's largest state and the second largest subnational entity in the world, it has 2.1 million inhabitants , 85% of whom live in the south-west corner of the state....
, where it is found on a small number of granite outcrops
Granite outcrops of Western Australia

Granite outcrops of Western Australia are inselbergs and monoliths made from granite that are found across much of Western Australia. Rising abruptly from the surrounding landscape they create a variety of microhabitats for plants, and provide seasonal resources and refuge for a range of animals....
. The name "silver" refers to the white powder that covers the branches, flower buds and fruit. "Gungurru" comes from the name used by the indigenous Noongar
Noongar

The Noongar , are an indigenous Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia from Geraldton, Western Australia on the west coast to Esperance, Western Australia on the south coast....
 people. Two subspecies have been identified: caesia (about 6–9 metres tall) and magna (up to 15 metres tall). The bark is red-brown, of the curly minni ritchi
Minni ritchi

Minni ritchi is a type of reddish brown bark that continuously peels in small curly flakes, leaving the tree looking like it has a coat of red curly hair....
 type. Branches tend to flail or weep on the ground. Trees have large red-pink or white flowers, 40-50mm in diameter. They are widely grown as ornamental native plants, but have become rare in the wild.

Taxonomic History

Eucalyptus caesia was named in 1867 by George Bentham
George Bentham

George Bentham CMG, FRS was an England botanist, characterized by Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century"....
 from specimens collected by James Drummond
James Drummond (botanist)

James Drummond was a botany and natural history who was an early settler in Western Australia....
 in 1847. Drummond made his collection too late in the season to gather buds and flowers, and this made later identification difficult. During the Elder Scientific Exploring Expedition of 1891–2, Richard Helms gathered specimens of a Eucalyptus that the Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the first human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands and their descendants. Indigenous Australians are distinguished as either Australian Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders, who currently together make up about 2.6% of Australia's population....
 of the area called "Gungurru". This was almost certainly Eucalyptus woodwardii
Eucalyptus woodwardii

Eucalyptus woodwardii, Lemon-flowered mallee also Woodward's blackbutt , is a small tree or mallee with smooth, white, pink, greenish or light copper coloured bark that sheds in ribbons....
, but in 1896 it was misidentified by Mueller and Tate as E. caesia. This led to the incorrect application of the common name "Gungurru" to E. caesia, and to confusion about the species' distribution.

Authenticated collections of E.  caesia were later made by A. Morrison in 1885, and in 1923 Charles Gardner
Charles Gardner

Charles Austin Gardner was a Western Australian botanist.Born in Lancaster, Lancashire, England on 6 January 1896, he emigrated to Western Australia with his family in 1909....
 collected specimens from a form with considerably larger leaves, buds, flowers and fruits. This was later recognised as subspecies magna by Brooker and Hopper (1982), with the original form being designated subspecies caesia.

External links

  • Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants (ASGAP)