SILVER-LEAF IRONBARK
Eucalyptus melanophloia
Plant Family
Myrtaceae
Alternative Common Names
silver ironbark, silver leafed ironbark.
Small to medium sized often gnarled tree, to 20m high. Bark is very dark and rough, deeply furrowed, persistent on all branches.
Leaves - mostly opposite, silver to blue-grey on both sides, egg-shaped to heart-shaped or lance-shaped.
Flowers - whitish, borne in clusters of 3-6, each cluster at the end of slightly flattened common stalk.
Fruit - woody, cup-shaped to hemispherical capsule 3–8 mm long and wide with the valves near or below rim level.
Flowering - spring-summer.
Habitat
Sandplain areas with deep red sandy soils overlaying a clayey subsoil. Occurs as a dominant species, or as a co-dominant with bimble box, or as a major tree species in buck spinifex communities; less commonly found on stony hillsides within currawang communities, and in association with red box in open woodlands on red earths.
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