''Corymbia opaca'', also known as the desert 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 elsew ...

to northern Australia. It has rough bark on part or all of the trunk, lance-shaped leaves, club-shaped flower buds and urn-shaped fruit. Several parts of this plant are used by

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

in traditional medicine.

Description

Corymbia opaca is a tree, rarely a mallee, 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 ...

. It has rough, tessellated, reddish brown bark over some or all of its trunk. 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 repeated ...

regrowth have

petiolate Petiole may refer to: *Petiole (botany), the stalk of a leaf, attaching the blade to the stem *Petiole (insect anatomy) In entomology, petiole is the technical term for the narrow waist of some hymenopteran insects, especially ants, bees, a ...

, egg-shaped to lance-shaped leaves, long and wide, with a small point on the tip. Adult leaves are arranged alternately, the same shade of green or greyish green on both sides, lance-shaped, long and wide with a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in groups of seven on an unbranched, cylindrical peduncle long, the individual buds 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 ...

long. Mature buds are club-shaped, with an oval

floral cup In angiosperms, a hypanthium or floral cup is a structure where basal portions of the calyx, the corolla, and the stamens form a cup-shaped tube. It is sometimes called a floral tube, a term that is also used for corolla tube and calyx tube. It ...

about long and wide and a saucer-shaped operculum that has a central point and is about long and wide. The flowers are creamy white and the fruit is an urn-shaped capsule long and wide.

Taxonomy and naming

The desert bloodwood was first formally described in 1985 by

Denis John Carr Denis may refer to: People * Saint Denis of Paris, 3rd-century Christian martyr and first bishop of Paris * Denis the Areopagite, Biblical figure * Denis, son of Ampud (died 1236), baron in the Kingdom of Hungary * Denis the Carthusian (1402– ...

and

Stella Grace Maisie Carr Maisie Carr (''née'' Fawcett; 1912–1988) was an innovative Australian ecologist and botanist who contributed much to the understanding of the uniqueness of Australian plants and their environmental systems. Foundation years Maisie Carr was ...

who gave it the name ''Eucalyptus opaca'' and published the description in their book ''Eucalyptus 1 - New or little-known species of the Corymbosae''. The type specimens were collected in 1983 from the

Lasseter Highway Lasseter Highway is a fully sealed 244 kilometre highway in the Northern Territory of Australia. It connects Yulara, Kata Tjuta and Uluru east to the Stuart Highway at Erldunda. The highway is named after Lewis Hubert (Harold Bell) Lasseter, ...

near

Kata Tjuta Kata Tjuṯa / The Olgas (Pitjantjatjara: , lit. 'many heads'; ) is a group of large, domed rock formations or bornhardts located about southwest of Alice Springs, in the southern part of the Northern Territory, central Australia. Uluṟu / Aye ...

. 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 opaca'', publishing the change in the journal '' Telopea''.Philip Moore 2005 “A Guide to Plants of Inland Australia” Reed New Holland The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''opaca'') is derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word ''opacus'' meaning "darkened, dull, not shining or opaque". Some authors and herbaria accept ''C. opaca'' as a distinct species and others consider it to be inseparable from ''C. terminalis'' and ''C. tumescens''. To the extent that the species can be reliably differentiated, ''C. terminalis'' has thinner leaves, larger buds and fruit and thicker pedicels than ''C. opaca''.

Distribution and habitat

''Corymbia opaca'' occurs in scattered population in desert areas of the southwest Kimberley,

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal peoples; its ancient landscapes; the red earth; and its vast mineral deposits, in particular iron ore. It is also a glo ...

and northern desert regions of Western Australia, in central and southern parts of the Northern Territory (particularly around

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' Al ...

) and in the

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and

Musgrave Ranges Musgrave Ranges is a mountain range in Central Australia, straddling the boundary of South Australia (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) and the Northern Territory (MacDonnell Shire), extending into Western Australia. It is between the Great V ...

in the far northwest of South Australia. It commonly grows in sandy soils in alluvial areas and on lower hillslopes.

Conservation status

This eucalypt is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and e ...

and as "least concern" in South Australia.

Use in bush medicine

Occasionally a bloodwood tree will shed a piece of bark, hence opening a "wound" through which a blood-like

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will flow. The sap flows until it crystallises, covering up the hole in the bark. Australian Aboriginals collect this substance as bush medicine. They apply the sticky gum directly to sores or cuts and it works as an antiseptic. If the sap is in a dried form, it can be crushed into powder and boiled in water to use as an antiseptic wash. Another use of the bloodwood sap by Aboriginal people is to tan "kangaroo-skin waterbags". People collect

bush coconut The bush coconut, or bloodwood apple, is an Australian bush tucker food. It is an insect gall with both plant and animal components: an adult female scale insect and her offspring (of genus ''Cystococcus'') live in a gall induced on a bloodwo ...

s (a type of

bush tucker Bush tucker, also called bush food, is any food native to Australia and used as sustenance by Indigenous Australians, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but it can also describe any native flora or fauna used for culinary or ...

) from the tree, which are produced by an insect in

gall Galls (from the Latin , 'oak-apple') or ''cecidia'' (from the Greek , anything gushing out) are a kind of swelling growth on the external tissues of plants, fungi, or animals. Plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues, similar to be ...

. The roots of the bloodwood tree store water. Aboriginal peoples would dig up the roots and drain the water into a container.

References