A tall tree, reaching 200 ft or more in the wild, with a straight, clean trunk and open crown; bark on lower part of trunk rough and fibrous, but smooth and deciduous in the upper part, where it is whitish or bluish grey and shed in thin, longitudinal strips; branchlets glaucous or dark red. Juvenile leaves opposite for three or four pairs only, then alternate; they are broadly lanceolate, stalked, thick and rather glaucous; fully adult leaves alternate, stalked, lanceolate, 3 to 7 in. long and up to 2 in. wide, often curved; dull green or slightly glaucous, with conspicuous venation. Flowers in umbels of seven to fifteen on a stout common-stalk 2⁄5 to 4⁄5 in. long; buds club-shaped, with a hemispherical or conical operculum shorter than the calyx-tube, which is glaucous on the outside; anthers reniform. Fruit stalked, top- or pear-shaped, about 3⁄8 in. long; valves level with the rim of the tube or enclosed.

Native of the mountains of Tasmania and the south-eastern parts of the mainland, found at 3,000 to 4,500 ft in Victoria and 1,000 to 3,000 ft in Tasmania; the date of introduction is uncertain, but before 1907. It yields a good timber, marketed as Australian or Tasmanian oak. There are two large specimens at Mount Usher, Co. Wicklow, Eire, planted in 1905 and measuring 98 × 63⁄4 and 96 × 93⁄4 ft (1966). It is growing well at Crarae on Loch Fyne, Argyll, where a specimen planted in 1946 measures 62 × 31⁄4 ft (1969). Young plants came through the winter of 1962–3 at Glendoick, E. Perthshire, and Malahide Castle, near Dublin.

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

specimens: Kilmun, Argyll, pl. 1950, 72 × 91⁄2 ft (1978); Crarae, Argyll, pl. 1946, 75 × 33⁄4 ft (1976); Logan Botanic Garden, Wigt., 48 × 23⁄4 ft (1979); Mount Usher, Co. Wicklow, Eire, pl. 1905, 98 × 63⁄4 ft and 96 × 93⁄4 ft (1966).

From New Trees

Eucalyptus delegatensis R.T. Baker

Alpine Ash

This species was described by Bean (B131) and Krüssmann (K48).