Eucalyptus cylindriflora


Eucalyptus cylindriflora, commonly known as the white mallee, is a species of mallee that is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It has smooth bark, glossy green, linear adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven, creamy white flowers and cylindrical to cup-shaped fruit.

Description

Eucalyptus cylindriflora is a mallee that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth white to greyish bark. Young plants and coppice regrowth have linear to lance-shaped leaves that are glossy green on the upper surface, dull below, long and wide. The adult leaves are linear, the same glossy green on both sides, long and wide on a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in groups of seven on a thin peduncle long, the individual buds on a pedicel long. Mature buds are oval to cylindrical, long and wide with a conical operculum. Flowering occurs from December to March and the flowers are creamy white. The fruit is a woody cylindrical to cup-shaped capsule long and wide.

Taxonomy and naming

Eucalyptus cylindriflora was first formally described in 1925 by Joseph Maiden and William Blakely from a specimen collected by Charles Gardner near Bendering, growing with Melaleuca uncinata. The description was published in Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales. The specific epithet is derived from Latin and refers to the cylinder-shaped flower buds of this species.

Distribution and habitat

White mallee is found on sandplains on the south western Goldfields-Esperance, Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions of Western Australia growing in mallee shrubland in sandy or clay sand soils with lateritic gravel.

Conservation status

This mallee is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.