Eucalyptus dalrympleana – 1 of the magnificent Mountain Gums

Description Botanical Name: Eucalyptus dalrympleana MYRTACEÆ; Myrtle Family Common Name: Mountain White Gum, Mountain Gum, Broad-leaved Kindling-bark, Broad-leaved Ribbon Gum, Kindlingbark, Seven-flowered Mountain Gum Status: Evergreen Tree Gorgeous, ornamental bark giving all year round garden interest Biometrics for Eucalyptus dalrympleana Shoots ‘n Leaves: Young stems are an orange scarlet colour. Juvenile Foliage: Emerging leaves are often pinky bronze shades. Adult Foliage: Elegant, willowy, sickle-shaped and blue-green in colour, often with reddish edges. Foliage is elegantly displayed in heavy tresses along drooping branches. The juvenile leaves measure from 3.5 mm to 12 mm long x 3.0 mm to 6.5 mm wide. Adult leaves measure from 8.5 mm to 27.5 mm long x 10-50 mm wide. Bark: The beautifully marked smooth bark is a striking feature of this variety. It has shades of cream, salmon pink, coffee and silvery grey patchwork; which flakes off revealing new smooth, pure white bark beneath. Flowers: White flowers displayed in umbels of three, an excellent source of nectar for honey bees. Leaf Aroma: Strong, fresh Eucalyptus aroma reminiscent of sweet Cinnamon and a hint of ‘Olbas Oil’. Rate of Growth: Fast, 1.5-2.0 m (5-6 ft) per year. Height in Maturity: Long term, Eucalyptus dalrympleana will form a very impressive large tree at around 40m. The best specimens in the Hillier arboretum are 120ft tall, with chalk-white bark. The Royal Horticultural Society recommend that you grow it to a height that suits your environment and then coppice it; growing it back up again either as a single trunk or multi-stemmed tree. Hardiness: Tolerating down to around -12°C mark, once mature. Hardy, but as it is so fast growing, some of the shoot tips may remain soft going into winter. If cut down in exceptionally cold winters, the tree regrows from its lignotuber; with multiple shoots appearing around the base of the tree trunk in late summer, creating a mallee (multi-stemmed thicket – like Hazel copses). It can be thinned to form just one main trunk. Hardiness in Eucalyptus is governed by provenance of seed, how it is grown (i.e. high nitrogen levels reduces cold tolerance), age of the tree – the older your tree, the hardier it will be. Younger Eucs are more susceptible to frost damage. Hardiness refers to the lignotuber and not the foliage.  Our plantation trees defoliated in the icy winds of the Beast from the East when we had -8 celsius, but then fully leafed out a few weeks later. Origin: The species occurs in South-east Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. Introduced to Britain in 1942.Why we like this species:A fast growing evergreen tree, giving you a quick result.  Grow your own fragrant firewood for your firepit. We use ribbons of bark to light our log burner. On hot breezy summer days, when the leaves of E. dalrympleana are transpiring a great deal of water, put your ear to the trunk and listen carefully – the sap conducting vessels (xylem) lie just beneath the thin bark and you can hear the water gushing madly up through the pipe-work in the tree trunk! Click here to visit our Pruning Diagrams and Guidance Notes Click here to see our Pruning Video Lignotuber:  it has one, which is a good thing!  E. dalrympleana will regenerate off the lignotuber if cut down by man, beast or nature.  It also produces many shoots from epicormic buds lying dormant beneath the bark higher up the tree; so E. dalrympleana will respond extremely well to both coppicing and pollarding practices. Interesting botanical notes: E. dalrympleana is in the Eucalyptus subgenus Symphomyrtus section Maidenaria, a large group of species basically restricted to the south-eastern region of Australia.  Within this section, E. dalyrmpleana belongs in the series Vimnales subseries Circulares. It is closely related to the smaller very ornamental species E. rubida Meaning of the name: Eucalyptus dalrympleana was named in 1920, after Richard Dalrymple-Hay (1861-1943), the first Commissioner of Forests in New South Wales. Click here to learn more about what you can do to help your Eucalyptus become more hardy after planting