Corymbia ficifolia in Berkeley California

''Corymbia ficifolia'', commonly known as red flowering gum, is a species of small tree that is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the south-west of Western Australia. It has rough, fibrous bark on the trunk and branches, egg-shaped to broadly lance-shape adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, bright red, pink or orange flowers and urn-shaped fruit. It has a restricted distribution in the wild but is one of the most commonly planted ornamental eucalypts.

Description

''Corymbia ficifolia'' is a straggly tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a

lignotuber A lignotuber is a woody swelling of the root crown possessed by some plants as a protection against destruction of the plant stem, such as by fire. Other woody plants may develop basal burls as a similar survival strategy, often as a respons ...

. It has rough, fibrous brownish bark on the trunk and branches. The adult leaves are dull to slightly glossy, paler on the lower surface, egg-shaped to broadly lance-shaped, long and wide, tapering to a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged on the ends of branchlets on a branched peduncle long, each branch of the peduncle with seven buds on

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branch ...

long. Mature buds are oval to pear-shaped, long and wide with a rounded to flattened operculum. Flowering occurs from December to May and the flowers are bright red to pink or orange. The fruit is a woody urn-shaped capsule long and wide with the valves enclosed in the fruit. The other two bloodwoods found in the south-west of Western Australia are '' C. haemotoxylon'' and marri ('' C. calophylla''). Unlike ''C. ficifolia'', they have tessellated bark rather than fibrous bark.

Taxonomy

Red-flowering gum was first formally described in 1860 by

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Victoria, Australia ...

, who gave it the name ''Eucalyptus ficifolia'' and published the description in his book, ''

Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae ''Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae'' is a series of papers written by the Victorian Government botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in which he published many of his approximately 2000 descriptions of new taxa of Australian plants. Including the p ...

''. In 1995, Ken Hill and

Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson (26 June 1925 – 1 August 1997) known as Lawrie Johnson, was an Australian Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic botany, botanist. He worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, for the whole of his professional car ...

changed the name to ''Corymbia ficifolia''. In 2009, Parra-O and colleagues published a combined analysis of nuclear rDNA (ETS + ITS) and morphological characters published to clarify relationships within the genus ''Corymbia''. ''C. ficifolia'' was shown to comprise a natural group with two other Western Australian species '' C. calophylla'' and '' C. haematoxylon''. They classified the group as section ''Calophyllae'' within the subgenus ''Corymbia''. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

''ficifolia'' is from Latin ''ficus'' meaning 'fig' and ''folium'' 'leaf', referring to the similarity of its leaves to some species of ''

Ficus ''Ficus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family (biology), family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few spe ...

''. The

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

was collected from around the Broke Inlet by George Maxwell.

Distribution and habitat

''Corymbia ficifolia'' grows in sandy soil in low forest on slopes and is restricted to a sub-coastal distribution south-east of

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, east of Mount Frankland, Walpole and the Stirling Range.

Use in horticulture

Red-flowering gum is one of the most widely cultivated of all eucalypts, both in Australia and overseas. It is best suited to temperate districts with low summer rainfall and is rarely reliable on the east coast of Australia. In suitable climates it is moderately fast-growing and is often larger and more vigorous in cultivation than in the wild. Eucalypts are difficult to grow from cuttings and are usually grown from seed. As a result, flower colour cannot be guaranteed, although some small forms have become available as grafted plants. In nature ''Corymbia ficifolia'' prefers infertile, sandy soils but it is readily adaptable to most temperate locations, provided it is not exposed to severe frost or sustained tropical damp. It is an ideal street tree as it is hardy, moderately fast growing, and rarely grows large enough to require pruning. The largest known single-stemmed tree of this species in the world (216.5 cm diameter) is located on Princes Street in Hamilton, New Zealand. Because of its big and lovely colourful flowers, genetic improvement for cold resistance in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

area in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

is being carried out by collecting seeds in the coldest parts of Western and Southern Australia where it grows. In Ireland most of the plants were killed by severe frosts but the surviving shoots have been kept by

tissue culture Tissue culture is the growth of tissue (biology), tissues or cell (biology), cells in an artificial medium separate from the parent organism. This technique is also called micropropagation. This is typically facilitated via use of a liquid, semi-s ...

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References