Eucalyptus aridimontana
Eucalyptus aridimontana is a mallee that is endemic to a small area in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven or nine, white flowers and barrel-shaped fruit.
Description
Eucalyptus aridimontana is a mallee that grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. The bark is grey and cream-coloured and smooth over the length of the tree. The leaves on young plants and on coppice regrowth are dull green to bluish, lance-shaped and up to long and wide. The adult leaves are lance-shaped, mostly long and wide. The flower buds are borne in groups of seven or nine on the ends of the branches and in leaf axils on a thickened peduncle long, the individual flowers on a pedicel long. The mature buds are club-shaped, wide with a conical operculum. The flowers are white and the fruit are barrel-shaped, long and wide.
Eucalyptus aridimontana was first formally described in 2012 by Dean Nicolle and Malcolm E. French from a specimen collected near Tom Price. The description was published in the journal Nuytsia. The specific epithet is derived from Latin words meaning "dry" and "montane", referring to the habitat of this species.
Distribution and habitat
This mallee grows in skeletal soils on the slopes, ridges and summits of high mountains in the Hamersley Range of the Gascoyne and Pilbara biogeographic regions.
Conservation
Eucalyptus aridimontana is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.