''Corymbia ferruginea'', commonly known as rusty bloodwood, is a species of tree that is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to northern Australia. It has rough, tessellated bark on the trunk and branches, a

crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

sessile Sessility, or sessile, may refer to: * Sessility (motility), organisms which are not able to move about * Sessility (botany), flowers or leaves that grow directly from the stem or peduncle of a plant * Sessility (medicine), tumors and polyps that ...

juvenile leaves, flower buds in groups of three or seven, pale creamy yellow flowers and urn-shaped fruit.

Description

''Corymbia ferruginea'' is a straggly tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a

lignotuber A lignotuber is a woody swelling of the root crown possessed by some plants as a protection against destruction of the plant stem, such as by fire. Other woody plants may develop basal burls as a similar survival strategy, often as a response t ...

. Young plants and

coppice Coppicing is a traditional method of woodland management which exploits the capacity of many species of trees to put out new shoots from their stump or roots if cut down. In a coppiced wood, which is called a copse, young tree stems are repeate ...

regrowth have more or less sessile, rusty green, hairy, broadly lance-shaped to egg-shaped or elliptical leaves that are long and wide. The leaves in the crown of the tree are juvenile leaves that are the same shade of dull green on both sides, with brown hairs along the veins, broadly lance-shaped to egg-shaped or elliptical, long and wide and sessile or on a petiole up to long. The flower buds are arranged on the ends of branchlets of a branched, densely hairy, rusty brown peduncle long, each branch of the peduncle with three or seven buds. The buds are sessile or on

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence. Such inflorescences are described as ''pedicellate''. Description Pedicel refers to a structure connecting a single flower to its inflorescence. In the absenc ...

up to long. Mature buds are oval to pear-shaped, long and wide with a rounded operculum. Flowering occurs from January to April and the flowers are pale creamy yellow. The fruit is a woody urn-shaped capsule long and wide with the valves enclosed in the fruit.

Taxonomy and naming

Rusty bloodwood was first formally described in 1843 by

Johannes Conrad Schauer Johannes Conrad Schauer (16 February 1813 – 24 October 1848) was a botanist interested in Spermatophytes. He was born in Frankfurt am Main and attended the gymnasium of Mainz from 1825 to 1837. For the next three years he worked at the Hofgar ...

in Walpers' book ''Repertorium Botanices Systematicae'' and given the name ''Eucalyptus ferruginea''. In 1995, Ken Hill and

Lawrie Johnson Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, FAA, (26 June 1925 – 1 August 1997) known as Lawrie Johnson, was an Australian Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic botany, botanist. He worked at the Royal Botanic Garden ...

changed the name to ''Corymbia ferruginea''. In the same journal, Hill and Johnson described two subspecies and the names are accepted by the

Australian Plant Census The Australian Plant Census (APC) provides an online interface to currently accepted, published, scientific names of the vascular flora of Australia, as one of the output interfaces of the national government Integrated Biodiversity Information Syst ...

: * ''Corymbia ferruginea'' (Schauer) K.D.Hill & L.A.S.Johnson subsp. ''ferruginea''; * ''Corymbia ferruginea'' subsp. ''stypophylla'' K.D.Hill & L.A.S.Johnson that differs from the

autonym Autonym may refer to: * Autonym, the name used by a person to refer to themselves or their language; see Exonym and endonym * Autonym (botany), an automatically created infrageneric or infraspecific name See also * Nominotypical subspecies, in zo ...

in having small leaves with petioles more than long.

Distribution and habitat

''Corymbia ferruginea'' grows in open forest and woodland on shallow, sandstone soils or deep sands from west of

Fitzroy Crossing Fitzroy or FitzRoy may refer to: People As a given name *Several members of the Somerset family (Dukes of Beaufort) have this as a middle-name: ** FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855) ** Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset, 8th Duke of Bea ...

in Western Australia then east through the northern part of the Northern Territory to south of

Burketown Burketown is an isolated outback town and coastal locality in the Shire of Burke, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Burketown had a population of 238 people. It is located west of Cairns and west of Normanton on the Albert R ...

in north-west Queensland.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15396106 ferruginea Myrtales of Australia Flora of Western Australia Flora of Queensland Flora of the Northern Territory Plants described in 1843