Eucalyptus arenacea
Eucalyptus arenacea, commonly known as the desert stringybark or sand stringybark, is a tree or a mallee that is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It has rough bark to the thinnest branches, lance-shaped or curved adult leaves, club-shaped flower buds arranged in groups of between seven and fifteen, white flowers and hemispherical to more or less spherical fruit. Description. "Eucalyptus arenacea" is a tree with several to many stems or a robust mallee, grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has rough, fibrous and stringy bark on its trunk and to the thinnest  branches. Leaves on young plants and on coppice regrowth are arranged in opposite pairs and are egg-shaped, long and wide. Adult leaves are shiny green, arranged alternately, lance-shaped or curved, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are borne in groups of between seven and fifteen in leaf axils on a peduncle long, the individual buds on a pedicel long. The mature buds are oval to club-shaped, long and wide with a rounded or conical operculum. Flowering mainly occurs between December and January and the flowers are white. The fruit is hemispherical to a truncated  sphere, long and wide on a pedicel up to long. Taxonomy and naming. "Eucalyptus arenacea" was first formally described in 1988 by Julie Marginson and Pauline Ladiges and the description was published in "Australian Systematic Botany". The specific epithet ("arenacea") is a Latin word meaning "of sand". Distribution and habitat. Desert stringybark grows on pale-coloured sandhills and on sandplains between Keith, Pinaroo and Bordertown in the Ninety Mile Desert in South Australia and in the Little Desert and Big Desert areas of Victoria.