Corymbia serendipita, common name Newcastle Range Bloodwood, is a new record for the Burra section (eastern side) of White Mountains National Park, discovered by Peter Horsfall during our NPQ May outing.
Pete’s sharp eyes picked out these trees as something different among many diverse eucalypts in the Burra area, and he took on the challenge of identifying them correctly.
Notably, the trunk of Corymbia serendipita (Myrtaceae) has rough, flaky and scaly orange-yellow bark (first photo below), shedding higher up to leave the upper branches smooth, pale grey to white (second photo below).
The leaves are narrow and lance-shaped, slightly darker green on one side than the other, and the tree holds its fruits/seed capsules erect above the foliage (photo below). There were no flowers visible on it in May.
Seed capsules that Pete measured were 8 mm long x 5 mm wide, urn-shaped and covered with small pustules (photo below).
Corymbia serendipita is an uncommon tree, endemic to northern Queensland. Typically it grows on higher, drier sandstone and ironstone plateaus, mainly in the Newcastle Range (hence its common name) between Einasleigh and Forsayth, south to Oakleigh Station, and at Cobbold Gorge.
You can find more information about this species (and other eucalypts) in two excellent resources that are freely available online:
- Don Franklin’s Eucalypts of north-east Queensland https://www.nqnhg.org/eucalyptsneq
- EUCLID https://apps.lucidcentral.org/euclid/text/intro/index.html