Eucalyptus deglupta rainbow gum
Fabled for its coat of many colors, the rainbow gum is further distinguished as one of a handful of eucalypts not native to Australia.
One appeared in each of the two islands in front of Memorial Church in 2016. From spindly 2-foot sticks, they rapidly put on height and girth, the one in the inner northwest island fruiting in 2019. The smooth, peeling bark exposes inner bark of sage green, changing to copper, vermilion, and tan – nothing like the undoubtedly touched-up technicolor trunks of seed catalogs and travel advertisements, but very handsome nonetheless. Both trees were chopped down in 2023, but later that year six specimens, each about 8 feet tall and most already budding, were planted in the Arboretum about 100 feet northwest of the griffins.
About this Entry: Authored Jan 2023 by Sairus Patel. (Other eucalyptus not native to Australia: E. alba var. alba, E. orophila, E. urophylla, E. wetarensis.) Location updates (Apr 2024, SP).