Eucalyptus salicola
Eucalyptus salicola, commonly known as salt gum, salt lake salmon gum or salt salmon gum, is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It has smooth, powdery bark, linear to narrow lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, nine or eleven, creamy white flowers and cup-shaped to hemispherical fruit.
Description
Eucalyptus salicola is a tree that typically grows to a height of, sometimes to but lacks a lignotuber. It has smooth, powdery white to pale grey bark that is salmon pink when new. Young plants have glaucous, heart-shaped to round leaves that are long and wide. Adult leaves are the same shade of glossy green on both sides, linear to narrow lance-shaped, long and wide, tapering to a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of seven, nine or eleven on an unbranched peduncle long, the individual buds on pedicels long. Mature buds are oval to spindle-shaped, long and wide with a conical to beaked operculum about the same length as the floral cup. Flowering occurs between January and March and the flowers are creamy-white. The fruit is a woody, short cup-shaped to hemispherical capsule long and wide with the valves near rim level.This species has a similar habit to and coloration to Eucalyptus salmonophloia.
Taxonomy and naming
Eucalyptus salicola was first formally described by the botanist Ian Brooker in 1988 in the journal Nuytsia. The type specimen was collected by Brooker and Stephen Hopper in 1984 to the east of Kulja along the Mollerin North Road. The specific epithet is from Latin words meaning "salt" and "dweller".Distribution and habitat
Salt gum is found around salt lakes and clay pans in the Wheatbelt and Goldfields-Esperance regions of Western Australia where it grows in red sandy clay-loam soils. The distribution is scattered but widespread extending from as far west as Newdegate to the Great Victoria Desert in the east.It occurs in woodland communities with associated overstorey species including E. loxophleba, E. salubris, E. myriadena, E. annulata and E. brachycorys. Low trees include Callitris columellaris and Pittosporum angustifolium.