Eucalyptus bensonii


Eucalyptus bensonii, commonly known as Benson's stringybark, is a small tree or mallee that is endemic to New South Wales. It has rough grey or brown stringy bark on the trunk and larger branches, smooth bark on the thinnest branches, broadly lance-shaped to egg-shaped adult leaves, flower buds arranged in groups of seven, nine or eleven, white flowers and cup-shaped or hemispherical fruit in clusters.

Description

Eucalyptus bensonii is a mallee or a small tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has rough, grey or brown stringy bark on part or all of the trunak and larger branches, smooth grey bark above. Leaves on young plants and on coppice regrowth are broadly egg-shaped, long, wide on a petiole long. The adult leaves are arranged alternately, broadly lance-shaped or curved, long, wide with a petiole long, and the same glossy green on both sides. The flowers are borne in groups of seven or nine, rarely eleven, in leaf s on an angled or flattened peduncle long, the individual flowers lacking a pedicel. Mature buds are oblong, long and wide with a conical to rounded operculum. Flowering occurs from November to January and the flowers are white. The fruit that follows are woody, hemispherical to shortened spheres long and wide in clusters.

Taxonomy and naming

Eucalyptus bensonii was first formally described in 1990 by Lawrie Johnson and Ken Hill near Mount Boonbourwa which is near Kandos. The description was published in the journal Telopea. The specific epithet honours Douglas Howard Benson, an ecologist with the National Herbarium of New South Wales.

Distribution and habitat

Benson's stringybark is only known from isolated occurrences in the Wollemi National Park between Rylstone and Glen Davis where it grows in heath on highland plateau areas.