''Eucalyptus griffithsii'', commonly known as Griffith's grey gum, is a species of mallee or 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 Western Australia. It has smooth grey to whitish bark, sometimes with rough, loose fibrous bark near the base of the trunk, lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of three, white flowers and conical to cup-shaped fruit. Eucalyptus griffithsii buds

Description

''Eucalyptus griffithsii'' is a mallee or tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth grey to whitish bark, sometimes with rough, fibrous or scaly bark covering the bottom . Young plants and coppice regrowth have elliptical to lance-shaped, greyish green to slightly

glaucous ''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 ...

leaves, long and wide. Adult leaves are usually lance-shaped, the same glossy green on both sides, 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 three on an 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 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 cylindrical to pear-shaped, long and wide with an operculum that has radiating striations and is wider 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 occurs between September and December or between January and March and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody conical to cup-shaped capsule long and wide with two ridges along its sides and the valves near rim level.

Taxonomy and naming

''Eucalyptus griffithsii'' was first formally described in 1911 by

Joseph Maiden Joseph Henry Maiden (25 April 1859 – 16 November 1925) was a botanist who made a major contribution to knowledge of the Australian flora, especially the genus ''Eucalyptus''. This botanist is denoted by the author abbreviation when citing ...

in the ''Journal of the Natural History and Science Society of Western Australia''. 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 ...

(''griffithsii'') honours John Moore Griffiths for his interest in the work of Maiden over "nearly thirty years".

Distribution and habitat

Griffith's grey gum grows on low-lying flats and on rocky hillsides in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia between

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

and

Norseman The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the pre ...

where it grows in loamy-gravelly soils.

Conservation status

This mallee 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 ...

. Image:Grey Gum in Primer of Forestry Poole 1922.png, mature tree with man standing at left, circa 1920

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15398554 Eucalypts of Western Australia griffithsii Myrtales of Australia Plants described in 1911 Taxa named by Joseph Maiden

Description

Taxonomy and naming

Distribution and habitat

Conservation status

See also

References