Eucalyptus falciformis
(Newnham, Ladiges & Whiffin) RuleTree to 15 m tall or mallee; bark rough, fibrous on trunk, often only near base on smaller stems. Juvenile leaves sessile, opposite, soon becoming subsessile and vertically-orientated, narrowly lanceolate to ovate, falcate, 8–17 cm long, 1.5–7 cm wide, dull blue-grey; adult leaves petiolate, alternate, lanceolate to falcate, 10–22 cm long, 1.7–3.5 cm wide, concolorous, sometimes slightly glossy, blue-green; lateral veins subparallel; oil glands numerous, mostly island. Inflorescences axillary, unbranched, occasionally paired; peduncles 0.8–1.2 cm long, 11–many-flowered; buds pedicellate, clavate, to 0.9 cm long, 0.5 cm diam., no scar (single operculum); operculum conical or obtuse-conical; stamens mostly inflexed; anthers dorsifixed, reniform; ovules in 2 vertical rows; flowers white. Fruit pedicellate, slightly obconical, cupular, or subcylindrical, 0.6–0.8 cm long, 0.6–0.8 cm diam.; disc level; valves 3 or 4, rim level; seed brown to dark brown, glossy, smooth, pyramidal but distorted by one curved face, hilum terminal. Flowers spring.
LoM, Wim, GleP, Brid, VVP, OtP, WaP, CVU, GGr, DunT, OtR. Also SA. Occurs on sandy soils in near-coastal heathy woodland from Anglesea area west to the SA border, sometimes adjacent to wetter vegetation. Also locally common in broadly similar vegetation in the Grampians.
Part of a species complex including Eucalyptus dives, E. willisii, E. molyneuxii and E. arenicola. The two western species (E. falciformis and E. molyneuxii) have a distinctive juvenile leaf development, where the leaf lamina is soon separated from the stem and vertically-orientated. Aside from characters in the key, E. molyneuxii can be distinguished from E. falciformis by its smaller habit and narrower, green juvenile leaves.
This species was previously treated as a subspecies of E. willisii. The adult leaves are thicker and less glandular, and fruits and buds and larger than those of E. willisii.
Populations in the Otways may be somewhat intermediate E. falciformis and E. radiata.
Brooker, M.I.H.; Slee, A.V. (1996). Eucalyptus. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 3, Dicotyledons Winteraceae to Myrtaceae, pp. 946–1009. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning