Eucalyptus melanophloia

Eucalyptus melanophloia F.Muell. (Myrtaceae), silver-leaved ironbark, is a medium-sized evergreen tree of the seasonally dry tropics and subtropics of eastern Australia, ranging widely from inland Queensland south into northern and central New South Wales. Mature trees reach 10-25 m tall with a single straight bole supporting a moderately spreading, open crown. The bark is the defining feature: persistent, hard, deeply furrowed and black 'ironbark' clothes the trunk and all main branches to the smallest twigs. Both juvenile and adult leaves remain markedly opposite, sessile and broadly ovate to almost orbicular, 4-9 cm long, glaucous to silvery-blue and concolorous, an unusual retention of juvenile foliage that gives the tree its English name. Inflorescences are axillary three-flowered umbels of small cream-white flowers with a conical operculum about as long as the hypanthium. The fruit is a small hemispherical to ovoid woody capsule 3-6 mm in diameter with three to five enclosed valves. It dominates open eucalypt woodlands on shallow stony soils.