FoI
Red Flowering Gum
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Red Flowering Gum
E Introduced Photo: Thingnam Girija
Common name: Red Flowering Gum
Botanical name: Corymbia ficifolia    Family: Myrtaceae (Bottlebrush family)
Synonyms: Eucalyptus ficifolia

Red Flowering Gum is a straggly tree that typically grows to a height of 10 m. It has rough, fibrous brownish bark on the trunk and branches. The adult leaves are dull to slightly glossy, paler on the lower surface, egg-shaped to broadly lance-shaped, 7-13 cm long and 2.5-5 cm wide, tapering to a leaf-stalk 0.8-2 cm long. The flower buds are arranged on the ends of branchlets on a branched flower-cluster-stalk 1.5-3.2 cm long, each branch of the flower-cluster-stalk with seven buds on flower-stalks 1.3-2.7 cm long. Mature buds are oval to pear-shaped, 1.2-1.8 cm long and 6-8 mm wide with a rounded to flattened operculum. Flowers are bright red to pink or orange. The fruit is a woody urn-shaped capsule 2-4.2 cm long and 1.8-3 cm wide with the valves enclosed in the fruit. Red Flowering Gum is native to Australia, cultivated elsewhere.

Identification credit: Tabish Photographed in Shillong, Meghalaya.

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