''Corymbia polycarpa'', also known as long-fruited bloodwood or small-flowered 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.

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

s of different language groups have different names for the tree. The Nungali peoples know the tree as or , the Mulluk-Mulluk know it as , the Yangman know it as , the

Gurindji people The Gurindji are an Aboriginal Australian people of northern Australia, southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory's Victoria River region. Language and culture Gurindji is one of the eastern Ngumbin languages, in the Ngumbin-Yapa s ...

s as and the

Wagiman The Wagiman, also spelt Wagoman, Wagaman, Wogeman, and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. Language The Wagiman language Wagiman, also spelt Wageman, Wakiman, Wogeman, and other variants, is a near ...

as . It is a medium-sized tree with rough, tessellated bark on the trunk and branches, lance-shaped to curved adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven or nine, white or cream-coloured flowers and barrel-shaped fruit.

Description

''Corymbia polycarpa'' is a tree that typically grows to a height of , sometimes , 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, flaky and brownish bark on the trunk and branches. Older bark is grey brown and newer bark is red-brown in colour. 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 elliptic to lance-shaped leaves that are up to long, wide and petiolate. Adult leaves are usually glossy green, paler on the lower surface, lance-shaped to curved, long and wide, tapering to a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged on the ends of the branchlets on a branched peduncle long, each branch of the peduncle with seven or nine 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 oval to pear-shaped, long and wide with a rounded to conical operculum. The buds have a whitish scaly surface due to the fragmenting rubber cuticle. Flowering occurs from April to August and the flowers are white or cream-coloured. The fruit is a woody, elongated barrel-shaped capsule long and wide on a pedicel long with the four valves enclosed in the fruit. The seeds are brown, ellipsoidal and long with a wing on the end. This species is distinguished from '' C. clarksoniana''. '' C. ligans'' and '' C. novoguinensis'' in the basis of fruit shape.

Taxonomy

The species was first formally described as ''Eucalyptus polycarpa'' by the botanist

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (german: Müller; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Vict ...

in 1859 in the '' Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Botany''. It was reclassified into the genus ''Corymbia'' in 1995 by Ken Hill and

Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson FAA, (26 June 1925 – 1 August 1997) known as Lawrie Johnson, was an Australian taxonomic botanist. He worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, for the whole of his professional career, as a botanist (1948 ...

in the journal '' Telopea''.

Distribution

''Corymbia polycarpa'' is found in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland and northwestern New South Wales. The species is quite common between Broome and

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

in Western Australia through the Kimberley region of Western Australia extending east over the

Top End The Top End of Australia's Northern Territory is a geographical region encompassing the northernmost section of the Northern Territory, which aside from the Cape York Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Australian continent. It covers a ra ...

of the Northern Territory including nearby islands and across the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria (, ) is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea (the body of water that lies between Australia and New Guinea). The northern boundary is ...

and southern

Cape York Peninsula Cape York Peninsula is a large peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoiled wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth’s last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación ...

in Queensland. It is found near watercourses, in depressions or on floodplains growing in sandy or silty alluvium and less commonly in cracking clays and in skeletal

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

lateritic Laterite is both a soil and a rock type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by ...

soils.

Uses

The timber from the tree is a very durable, with an above-ground life expectancy in excess of 40 years which drops to 25 years when used in-ground. The timber is vulnerable to

termite Termites are small insects that live in colonies and have distinct castes (eusocial) and feed on wood or other dead plant matter. Termites comprise the infraorder Isoptera, or alternatively the epifamily Termitoidae, within the order Blattode ...

attack and untreated sapwood is prone to damage by lyctine borers. It is a hardwood and difficult to work with hand tools. It is mostly used as round timber rather than sawn timber as a result of the numerous

kino Kino may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters * KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S. * Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station * KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel Fictional entiti ...

veins. It has been used as poles, railway sleepers, mining supports, for fencing and house stumps.

s used the gum medicinally as an

antiseptic An antiseptic (from Greek ἀντί ''anti'', "against" and σηπτικός ''sēptikos'', "putrefactive") is an antimicrobial substance or compound that is applied to living tissue/skin to reduce the possibility of infection, sepsis, or putre ...

liquid to treat cuts, sores, burns, ulcers and

yaws Yaws is a tropical infection of the skin, bones, and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium ''Treponema pallidum pertenue''. The disease begins with a round, hard swelling of the skin, in diameter. The center may break open and form an ulce ...

Gallery

References

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q2998196

polycarpa ''Polycarpa'' is a genus of ascidian tunicates in the family Styelidae. Species within the genus ''Polycarpa'' include:Sanamyan, K. (2015)''Polycarpa'' Heller, 1877 .In: Shenkar, N.; Gittenberger, A.; Lambert, G.; Rius, M.; Moreira Da Rocha, R. ...