Botanical art
Prior names
Eucalyptus cosmophylla var. leprosula
Eucalyptus cosmophylla var. rostrigera
Eucalyptus cosmophylla f. leprosula
Common names
Cup Gum
Bog Gum
Etymology
Eucalyptus from the Greek 'eu' meaning well and 'calyptos' meaning covered; alluding to the cap or lid which covers the stamens in the bud. Cosmophylla from the Greek 'cosmos' meaning ornament and 'phyllon' meaning a leaf; referring to the large, ornamental leaves.
Distribution and status
Endemic to South Australia and found on Kangaroo Island and the southern Mount Lofty Rnges, growing on a variety of soils, usually of low fertility in mallee shrubland. Native. Common in South Australia.
Herbarium regions: Northern Lofty, Southern Lofty, Kangaroo Island, Green Adelaide
AVH map: SA distribution map (external link)
Plant description
Multi-stemmed tree to 5 m high or less often single-stemmed and up to 10 m with almost entirely smooth, pale buff-grey with whitish and pinkish areas, shedding in plates. Juvenile leaves narrow- to broadly elliptic, but becoming ovate-orbicular. Adult leaves to 150 mm long and 40 mm wide, slightly oblique, narrow- to broad-lanceolate, thick, dull, grey-green. Flowers in shortly pedunculate or sessile umbels of 3 in the axils of the leaves. Buds to 15 mm long and 10 mm wide, on pedicels 0-3 mm long, obovoid or ellipsoid, bud-cap hemispherical to conical, shortly beaked, usually shorter than the bud-base. Flowers cream. Flowering between July and November. Fruits are large, cup-shaped to cylinder-shaped fruit to 17 mm long and 20 mm wide, usually 2-ribbed with a thick rim, valves broad, usually with the tips just below the rim. Seeds are dark brown to black pyramid-shaped to irregularly-shaped seed to 2 mm long and 2 mm wide, with a wrinkled surface and a narrow wing along the main edge. Seed embryo type is folded.
Seed collection and propagation
Collect seeds between January and December. Collect mature fruits that are dark and hard (difficult to break with a finger nail), with the valves un-open any time of year. Leave the fruits in a breathable container in a dry room for one to two weeks. This allows the valves on the fruit to open and release the seeds. Separate the seeds by placing all the materials into a bucket and shaking it to dislodge the seeds. Pass the material through a sieve to separate the unwanted material. The finer material will contain both seeds (soft) and frass (hard) usually distinguishable from each other but can be very similar in shape and colour. With finer sieves, the seeds can be separated from the frass but this is not essential for storage or propagation. Store the seeds with a desiccant such as dried silica beads or dry rice, in an air tight container in a cool and dry place. From one collection, the seed viability was high, at 95%. Seeds are non-dormant, viable seed should germinate readily.
Location | No. of seeds (weight grams) | Number of plants | Date collected | Collection number Collection location | Date stored | % Viability | Storage temperature |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BGA MSB | 6,000 (10.2 g) 6,000 (10.2 g) | 16 | 16-Oct-2003 | PJA34 Kangaroo Island | 1-Sep-2004 | +5°C, -18°C |