Eucalyptus herbertiana
Eucalyptus herbertiana, commonly known as Kalumburu gum or yellow-barked mallee, is a species of small tree or mallee that is endemic to northern Australia. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped or curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, white flowers and cup-shaped, hemispherical or conical fruit.
Description
Eucalyptus herbertiana is a small tree or mallee that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth, powdery white bark with salmon coloured or creamy yellow new bark. Young plants and coppice regrowth have bluish grey to glaucous, egg-shaped leaves long and wide. Adult leaves are the same dull green colour on both sides, lance-shaped or curved, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of seven on an unbranched peduncle long, the individual buds sessile or on a pedicels long. Mature buds are oval, long and wide with a conical operculum. Flowering occurs in January, from June to July or from November to December and the flowers are white or creamy white. The fruit is a woody cup-shaped, hemispherical or conical capsule long and wide with the valves protruding high above the rim. The Northern Territory Flora reports that this eucalypt is deciduous during the later dry season.Taxonomy
Eucalyptus herbertiana was first formally described by the botanist Joseph Maiden in 1923 in his book A Critical Revision of the Genus Eucalyptus. The name honours Australian botanist Desmond Herbert.Eucalyptus herbertiana belongs to a small group of species closely related to the red gums and is most closely related to E. cupularis and E. gregoriensis. It is similar in appearance to and closely related to the mountain white gum but E.mooreana has stem-clasping leaves.