Alternate name: Tasmanian Blue Gum

Family: Myrtaceae, Myrtle view all from this family

Description Very tall, straight-trunked, introduced tree with narrow, irregular crown of drooping, evergreen foliage, with odor of camphor.
Height: 120' (37 m).
Diameter: 3' (0.9 m).
Leaves: evergreen; 4-12" (10-30 cm) long, 1-2" (2.5-5 cm) wide. Narrowly lance-shaped, long-pointed, usually curved; without teeth, thick and leathery, hairless; dull green on both surfaces. Leaves on young plants opposite, ovate, stalkless, with bluish or whitish bloom beneath.
Bark: mottled gray, brown, and greenish; smooth, peeling in strips; at base becoming gray, thick, rough, furrowed, and shaggy.
Twigs: yellow-green, slender, angled, hairless, drooping.
Flowers: 2" (5 cm) wide; with many white stamens and without petals with odor of camphor; scattered, single and almost stalkless at leaf base; in winter and spring.
Fruit: 3/4-1" (2-2.5 cm) wide; broad, top-shaped, angled capsules, warty and bluish-white, with 3-5 narrow openings at top and many tiny seeds; in spring.

Habitat Moist soils in subtropical regions.

Range Native of Australia. Widely planted in California and becoming naturalized.

Discussion This is one of the most extensively cultivated species of Eucalyptus in subtropical regions of the world and the most common eucalyptus in California among the numerous introduced species. It grows very rapidly and sprouts from stumps. It is used as a street tree, for windbreaks and screens, and in forest plantations for fuel, pulpwood, and construction timber. A medicinal oil used as an expectorant and decongestant is distilled from the aromatic leaves. This species is the floral emblem of the island of Tasmania.