Common name: Lemon-scented Gum
Corymbia citriodora (Hook.) K.D.Hill & L.A.S.Johnson APNI* Synonyms: Eucalyptus citriodora Hook. APNI*
Description: Tree to 50 m tall. Bark smooth throughout, white to pink or coppery, often powdery, shedding in thin curling flakes, mottling of trunk often not pronounced.
Juvenile leaves always petiolate, opposite for 2 or 3 pairs then alternate, ovate to lanceolate, 14–21 cm long, 4.5–8 cm wide, the base usually peltate for many nodes, green; petiole and lamina scabrid for many nodes. Adult leaves alternate, petiole 1–2.5 cm long; blade narrowly lanceolate to falcate, (7)10–23 cm long, 0.6–2.8(3.5) cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy, green, strongly penniveined, very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and just within margin, oil glands island. Leaves lemon-scented when crushed or not so.
Inflorescences axillary compound; buds 3 per umbel, pedicels 0.1–0.6 cm long. Mature buds obovoid to pyriform, 0.6–1 cm long, 0.5–0.7 cm wide, green to creamy, usually smooth, scar usually absent, operculum rounded to conical or slightly beaked, Flowers white.
Fruit pedicellate, urceolate or barrel-shaped, 0.8–1.5 cm long, 0.7–1.2 cm wide, disc descending, valves 3, enclosed. Seed reddish black, glossy, 2.3–5 mm long, boat-shaped, dorsal surface smooth, not winged, hilum ventral.
Distribution and occurrence: A tall tree from temperate and tropical eastern Australia, distributed from the Cooktown area to south of Gladstone in Queensland. Sparingly naturalised in NSW. It prefers lighter loamy soils or skeletal soils and occurs as a component of dry sclerophyll forest and woodlands in hilly country.
NSW subdivisions: *CC
Text by Louisa Murray
Taxon concept: Hill, K. & Johnson, L.A.S. (1995) Telpea 6 (2-3)
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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