Eucalyptus rubida
Eucalyptus rubida, commonly known as candlebark, ribbon gum or white gum, is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It has smooth bark, sometimes with rough bark at the base, lance-shaped or curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of three, white flowers and cup-shaped, hemispherical or bell-shaped fruit.
Description
Eucalyptus rubida is a tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth, powdery, greyish or pink bark that is shed in long ribbons but there is sometimes persistent fibrous bark near the base of the trunk. Young plants and coppice regrowth have sessile, glaucous, more or less round leaves wide arranged in opposite pairs. Adult leaves are arranged alternately, lance-shaped to curved, long and wide, tapering to a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of three on an unbranched peduncle, the individual buds sessile or an pedicels up to long. Mature buds are oval to spindle-shaped, long and wide with a conical to rounded operculum. Flowering mainly occurs from December to April and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody cup-shaped, hemispherical or bell-shaped capsule long and wide with the valves near rim level or protruding slightly.Taxonomy and naming
Eucalyptus rubida was first formally described in 1899 by Henry Deane and Joseph Maiden in Linnean Society of [New South Wales|Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales]. The specific epithet is from the Latin word rubidus meaning "red", referring to the seasonally red bark.In 1991, Lawrie Johnson and Ken Hill described two subspecies and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census as at December 2019:Eucalyptus rubida subsp. barbigerorum L.A.S.Johnson & K.D.Hill, commonly known as blackbutt candlebark, has elliptic juvenile leaves and a trunk with thick, rough bark at the base;Eucalyptus rubida H.Deane & Maiden subsp. rubida has round juvenile leaves and smooth bark to ground level.