''Eucalyptus gardneri'', commonly known as blue mallet, or woacal, 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 ...

with flower buds in groups of between seven and eleven, creamy yellow or pale lemon-coloured flowers and cylindrical to barrel-shaped fruit. Eucalyptus gardneri flowers

Description

''Eucalyptus gardneri'' is a mallet that typically grows to a height of but does not form a lignotuber. It has smooth grey to salmon-pink bark that is shed in short flakes. The adult leaves are lance-shaped, the same dull grey-green or yellow-green colour on both sides, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are born 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 an unbranched 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 long spindle-shaped, long and wide with a horn-shaped operculum that is three to four times a long as 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 from February to September or December and the flowers are creamy yellow or pale lemon-coloured. The fruit is a woody cylindrical to barrel-shaped capsule long and wide with the valves near rim level.

Taxonomy and naming

''Eucalyptus gardneri'' was first formally described by the

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

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 1924 in his book ''A Critical Revision of the Genus Eucalyptus''. The species is named in honour of

Charles 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 ...

who collected the type specimen in 1922 from near

Bendering Bendering is a town located between Kondinin and Narembeen in the eastern Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The town was gazetted in 1921. The name of the town is taken from a nearby spring and is Aboriginal in origin; its meaning is un ...

along the railway line that runs between Narrogin and Narembeen.

Noongar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the so ...

people know the species as woacal. In 1991, 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 ...

described two subspecies and the names have been accepted by the

Australian Plant Census The Australian Plant Census (APC) provides an online interface to currently accepted, published, scientific names of the vascular flora of Australia, as one of the output interfaces of the national government Integrated Biodiversity Information Syst ...

: *''Eucalyptus gardneri'' Maiden subsp. ''gardneri''; *''Eucalyptus gardneri'' subsp. ''ravensthorpensis'' Brooker & Hopper has more robust, spindle-shaped flower buds than subspecies ''gardneri'', and an operculum less than long.

Distribution and habitat

Blue mallet is found on breakaways, rocky ridges and slopes in the southern Wheatbelt region of Western Australia where it grows in gravelly

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. ''Eucalyptus gardneri'' commonly occurs with '' E. argyphea'' '' E. phaenophylla'' in woodland communities making up the overstorey. Associated species in the understorey include '' Melaleuca uncinata'', ''

Hakea multilineata ''Hakea multilineata'', commonly known as grass-leaved hakea, is a shrub in the family ''Proteaceae''. It is endemic to an area in the Wheatbelt and Goldfields-Esperance regions of Western Australia. It has pink to red long racemes in upper le ...

'', '' Phebalium tuberculosum'', '' Allocasuarina acutivalvis'', '' Beyeria brevifolia'' and '' Trymalium elachophyllum''.

Conservation status

Both subspecies of ''E. gardneri'' are 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 ...

Cultivation

The tree is sold commercially in seed form or as tube stock for use as an ornamental or shade tree in gardens or for

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...

control or in water logged areas. It will grow in full sun, is

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

tolerant and attracts birds.

References