Eucalyptus deglupta rainbow gum

Rainbow gum, center, in the Inner Quad (since removed). Sairus Patel, 12 Jun 2021

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 tree in the inner northwest island setting fruit 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 felled in 2023.

Six new specimens, each about 8 feet tall and most already budding, were planted later that year in the Arboretum a hundred feet northwest of the griffins. Squirrels ravaged some of their trunks, stripping the thin, photosynthetic green bark to reach the sugar-rich tissues beneath; one tree succumbed.

Recent treatments recognize E. binacag, long included within E. deglupta, as a distinct species. Under this interpretation, most if not all rainbow gums cultivated in Hawaii and California, including Stanford’s, are considered E. binacag – their leaves ending in pronounced drip-tips, and their branchlets and leaf stalks lacking the waxy bloom found in E. deglupta.