Macleay Island is rich in native trees. There are natural forested areas that have not been touched, and here the trees are huge…tall and large and very old. Around the area I am living in.. the area behind Spar and the shops, there are huge trees amidst natural bush. This area was home to a timber industry in the beginning, and these trees are from that time and full of history. They are home to Kookaburras and Magpies and in season visited by Honey eaters and Bats, and right now in February, there are many butterflies and native bees hovering around.
Yes, grey gums shed their bark annually. Grey gums, Eucalyptus propinqua and Eucalyptus punctata, need to shed bark to grow.
“They’re a bit like a crab in a shell – they shed one skin and make another one,”
The trees shed their bark when the wet season starts, usually around January and February as it is then we usually receive good rainfall. Ordinarily the trees shed slowly, revealing new creamy to pink bark underneath
The Grey Gum is a tree to 35 m. Bark grey gum type. Juvenile leaves narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate. Adult leaves lanceolate, slightly falcate; lamina 8-15 cm long, 1.6-3 cm wide, shining above; lateral veins just visible, …; bark smooth, patchy, matte, white, grey, grey-brown, salmon or orange, shedding in large plates or flakes.
“They are orange because they’ve shed their bark early,” …. “The underneath hasn’t had time to weather. Normally they would peel a bit at a time and it would just fall off as it dies. Because it was such a big growth spurt with so much water, they just exploded instead of shedding gradually, and then we would notice the nice pink under the grey. They would normally be mottled, rather than orange.”
Tanya mentions another anomaly – the orange colour reaches right up into the branches.
Known as grey gum: there are so many trees given this name on the east coast of Australia, because there are rather a lot of grey gums. About ½ dozen are members of the Grey Gum Group – rather obviously named for their grey bark. All members of the group are prized for the strength and durability of their timber, and in the early days of European settlement were heavily logged for use in construction. The tree can appear to be a small mallee in tougher sites where the soil doesn’t quite suit, but on the Central Coast of New South Wales and SE Queensland it is generally a beautiful tall, elegant tree, 35 m or so high, with a tall, straight cylindrical trunk
Grey gums, Eucalyptus propinqua and Eucalyptus punctata, need to shed bark to grow.
“They’re a bit like a crab in a shell – they shed one skin and make another one,”
Normally the trees would not start to shed until February as it is then we usually receive good rainfall. Ordinarily the trees would shed slowly, revealing new creamy to pink bark underneath
The Grey Gum is a tree to 35 m. Bark grey gum type. Juvenile leaves narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate. Adult leaves lanceolate, slightly falcate; lamina 8-15 cm long, 1.6-3 cm wide, shining above; lateral veins just visible, …; bark smooth, patchy, matte, white, grey, grey-brown, salmon or orange, shedding in large plates or flakes.
Artist, Traveller, Researcher and Writer, currently living on Macleay Island., where I photograph and share experiences and events around the Islands and Island Life until I am able to travel again.
Travel photos and videos about many places in Australia and the world
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