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''Eucalyptus desmondensis'', commonly known as Desmond mallee, is a species of slender mallee that is endemic to a small area in the south-west of Western Australia. It has smooth bark, lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of between nine and nineteen, cream-coloured to pale yellow flowers and cup-shaped to barrel-shaped fruit.
Description
''Eucalyptus desmondensis'' is a slender, willowy mallee that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth whitish or pale brown bark, sometimes a drooping crown, andglaucous
''Glaucous'' (, ) is used to describe the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, as well as in the names of birds, such as the glaucous gull (''Larus hyperboreus''), glaucous-winged gull (''Larus glaucescens''), g ...
branchlets. Young plants and coppice regrowth have stems that are more or less square in cross-section and egg-shaped leaves long and wide. Adult leaves are arranged alternately, thick, the same glossy grey-green on both sides. They are lance-shaped, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axil
A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, st ...
s in groups of between nine and nineteen on a flattened, glaucous, unbranched peduncle Peduncle may refer to:
*Peduncle (botany), a stalk supporting an inflorescence, which is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed
*Peduncle (anatomy), a stem, through which a mass of tissue is attached to a body
**Peduncle (art ...
long. The individual buds are sessile or borne on a pedicel
Pedicle or pedicel may refer to:
Human anatomy
*Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures
...
up to long. Mature buds are oval, non-glaucous, long and wide with a conical operculum that is slightly longer than the 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 ...
. Flowering mainly occurs between May and November and the flowers are cream-coloured to pale yellow. The fruit is a woody cup-shaped to short barrel-shaped capsule long and wide.
Taxonomy and naming
''Eucalyptus desmondensis'' was first formally described in 1925 by Joseph Maiden and William Blakely from specimens collected byCharles Austin Gardner
Charles Austin Gardner (6 January 1896 – 24 February 1970) was an English-born Western Australian botanist.
Biography
Born in Lancaster, in England, on 6 January 1896, Gardner emigrated to Western Australia with his family in 1909, whe ...
in 1924. The description was published in ''Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales
A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to:
*Bullet journal, a method of personal organization
*Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period
*Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...
''. 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 ...
(''desmondensis'') refers to the locality Desmond, a former mining town near Ravensthorpe Ravensthorpe may refer to any of the following places.
England
*Ravensthorpe, Dewsbury in West Yorkshire
**Ravensthorpe railway station, Dewsbury
*Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire
*Ravensthorpe, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire
*Ravensthorpe, an histor ...
. The ending ''-ensis'' is a Latin suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
"denoting place, locality, or country".
Distribution and habitat
Desmond mallee is found on sandplains and rocky hillsides in a small part of the southern Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia centered around the Fitzgerald River National Park where it grows in stony clay, loam or sandy granitic based soils. It is most easily seen along the road between Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun.Conservation status
''Eucalyptus desmondensis'' is classified as " Priority Four" by the Government of Western AustraliaDepartment 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 ...
, meaning that is rare or near threatened. All known populations are on private property or on Crown land and none are in conservation reserves.
See also
* List of ''Eucalyptus'' speciesReferences
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15396125 desmondensis Endemic flora of Western Australia Mallees (habit) Myrtales of Australia Eucalypts of Western Australia Trees of Australia Goldfields–Esperance Vulnerable flora of Australia Plants described in 1925 Taxa named by Joseph Maiden Taxa named by William Blakely