Eucalyptus kartzoffiana

Location & distribution maps

Plant  information

Common name:         Araluen Gum

• The area now known as Araluen lies on the traditional lands of Walbanga people and the name 'Araluen' meant 'water lily' or 'place of the water lilies' 

Conservation status: Vulnerable

• This eucalypt is classified as "vulnerable" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the NSW Government Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016

• The main threats to the species include its small population size, land clearing, management of grazing land, roadside maintenance and herbicide use

Etymology:   

• The name Eucalyptus is derived from the Ancient Greek words eu meaning 'good'and kalypto meaning '(I) cover, conceal, hide', referring to the operculum covering the flower buds 

• The specific epithet (kartzoffiana) honours Michael Eugene Kartzoff a NSW forestervwho for a while prospected for gold in the Araluen district

Flowers:                  

• The flowers buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of three on an unbranched peduncle 2–5 mm long, the individual buds sessile

• Mature buds are cylindrical, 5–6 mm long and 4–5 mm wide and often glaucous, with a rounded to conical operculum 

• Flowering occurs in February and the flowers are white

Fruit:                         

• The fruit is a sessile, woody, bell-shaped capsule 4–6 mm long and 4–9 mm wide with the valves protruding above the rim

• The fruit is glaucous at first

Leaves:         

• Young plants and coppice regrowth have sessile, glaucous, egg-shaped or heart-shaped leaves 45–65 mm long and 15–45 mm wide

• Adult leaves are the same dull bluish green on both sides, lance-shaped to curved, 80–265 mm long and 12–36 mm wide on a petiole 10–41 mm long

• Crown often consisting of alternate, petiolate, broadly lanceolate intermediate leaves and adult leaves

Stem & branches: 

• It has rough, fibrous, scaly or flaky, greyish bark on part or most of the trunk, smooth white, grey or cream-coloured bark above

Roots:         

Habit:        

• It is a medium-sized tree that typically grows to a height of 30 m and forms a lignotuber

Habitat:   

• It grows in woodland and forest

Distribution:                  

• Endemic to a small area of southeastern NSW

• It has a restricted distribution on granite-derived soils south-east of Braidwood

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy and naming

  • Eucalyptus kartzoffiana was first formally described in 1973 by Lawrie Johnson and Donald Blaxell from a specimen collected in 1978 by Johnson on the Braidwood road near Araluen

  • The description was published in Contributions from the NSW National Herbarium

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_kartzoffiana (2023)

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araluen,_New_South_Wales#:~:text=The%20name%20'Araluen'%20meant%20',in%20the%20local%20Aboriginal%20language   (May 2024)

• https://www.anbg.gov.au/biography/kartzoff-michael-eugene.html   (May 2024)

• https://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=19330 (May 2024)

• https://apps.lucidcentral.org/euclid/text/entities/eucalyptus_kartzoffiana.htm (July 2024)