Eucalyptus armillata flanged mallee

Flanged mallee on the Eucalypt Walk (now removed). Sairus Patel, 3 Jun 2015

Eucalyptus armillata buds, Serra Street. Sairus Patel, 16 Sep 2024

Possibly the most graceful of campus’s mallees with its multiple creamy white trunks and smooth bark peeling to shades of salmon, rose, and tan. In late summer it is bedecked in red flowers emerging from buds with a distinctive flanged rim at the top of the cup, just below where the stamens emerge (armillata means adorned by a bracelet). This flange makes this eucalypt’s buds just as recognizable as the buds of Tasmanian blue gum. The stamens push off conical opercula that can be found in the litter beneath the tree. The ½-inch conical fruit develop a second flange at the lip of the cup. Formerly E. erythronema var. marginata, this eucalypt was raised to species status in 2012.

A fine multi-trunked specimen is on the east side of Campus Drive 45 yards from Bonair Siding walking southwards (map pin). Another was discovered in 2024 in the shrubbery on Serra Street midway between the Recycling Center and Pampas Lane, near the crosswalk and against the fence, its single white trunk entirely obscured by shrubbery (map pin). Campus’s most magnificent specimen, with 6 sinuous trunks, on the old Eucalypt Walk east of Lantana (map pin), was lost to construction in 2017.

Eucalyptus armillata trunk, colors rivaling those of the protective fence and the sunset, Campus Drive near Bonair Siding. Sairus Patel, 6 Nov 2022

Eucalyptus armillata buds. John Rawlings, ca. 2006

Illustrations: Eucalyptus armillata (syn. E. erythronema var. marginata) gallery.

Related material: Eucalypt checklist.