''Eucalyptus polita'', also known as Parker Range mallet, is a species of

mallet A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head. The term is descriptive of the overall size and proport ...

or small tree that is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It has smooth, greyish bark, narrow lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of between seven and eleven, white flowers and cup-shaped fruit.

Description

''Eucalyptus polita'' is a mallet or tree that typically grows to a height of but does not form a lignotuber. It has smooth greyish bark that is shed in long ribbons to reveal orange-coloured new bark. Young plants and coppice regrowth have dull green, lance-shaped leaves that are long and wide. Adult leaves are the same shade of glossy green on both sides, narrow lance-shaped, long and wide, tapering to 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 seven, nine or eleven on a flattened, 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 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 more or less cylindrical, long and about wide with a conical, striated operculum. The flowers are white and the fruit is a woody, cup-shaped capsule long and wide with the valves near rim level.

Taxonomy and naming

''Eucalyptus polita'' was first formally described in 1993 by Ian Brooker and

Stephen Hopper Stephen Donald Hopper AC FLS FTSE (born 18 June 1951) is a Western Australian botanist. He graduated in Biology, specialising in conservation biology and vascular plants. Hopper has written eight books, and has over 200 publications to his n ...

in the journal '' Nuytsia'' from material collected by Brooker on the Hyden -

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 ...

track in 1983. 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 ...

(''polita'') is from the Latin ''politus'' meaning "polished", referring to the bark.

Distribution and habitat

This mallet grows around salt lakes and on flat areas from

Forrestania Forrestania Airport is located at Forrestania, Western Australia. See also * List of airports in Western Australia This is a list of airports in the Australian state of Western Australia. __TOC__ List of airports The list is sorted by ...

to near

Marvel Loch Marvel may refer to: Business * Marvel Entertainment, an American entertainment company ** Marvel Comics, the primary imprint of Marvel Entertainment ** Marvel Universe, a fictional shared universe ** Marvel Music, an imprint of Marvel Comic ...

in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie and Mallee

biogeographic regions A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. De ...

Conservation status

This mallee 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 ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15354609 Eucalypts of Western Australia Trees of Australia polita Myrtales of Australia Plants described in 1993 Taxa named by Ian Brooker Taxa named by Stephen Hopper