Eucalyptus verrucata
# Eucalyptus verrucata

Eucalyptus verrucata, commonly known as Mount Abrupt stringybark, is a species of shrub or a small tree that is endemic to the Grampians in Victoria, Australia. It has smooth bark, rough bark on the base of older trees, egg-shaped to elliptical adult leaves, flower buds usually singly in groups of three in leaf axils, white flowers and cup-shaped or hemispherical fruit.

## Description

Eucalyptus verrucata is a shrub or a tree that typically grows to a height of 5 m (16 ft) and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth greyish to brownish bark, sometimes hard, fibrous bark on the base of the trunk of older plants. Young plants and coppice regrowth have sessile, broadly egg-shaped leaves that are oblong to egg-shaped or heart-shaped, 60–108 mm (2.4–4.3 in) long and 40–83 mm (1.6–3.3 in) wide, with stem-clasping bases. Adult leaves are the same shade of glossy green on both sides, egg-shaped to elliptical or round, 55–120 mm (2.2–4.7 in) long and 25–90 mm (0.98–3.54 in) wide on a petiole 12–28 mm (0.47–1.10 in) long. The flower buds are arranged singly or in groups of three or seven on an unbranched peduncle up to 2 mm (0.079 in) long, the individual buds sessile. Mature buds are very warty, oblong to spherical, 10–18 mm (0.39–0.71 in) long and 8–14 mm (0.31–0.55 in) wide with a rounded to flattened operculum. Flowering has been observed in July and September and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody cup-shaped or hemispherical capsule 12–20 mm (0.47–0.79 in) long and 16–32 mm (0.63–1.26 in) wide with the valves protruding prominently.

## Taxonomy and naming

Eucalyptus verrucata was first formally described in 1995 by Pauline Y. Ladiges and Trevor Paul Whiffin in Australian Systematic Botany from specimens collected in 1979 on the south-east side of Mount Abrupt at an altitude of 400 m (1,300 ft). The specific epithet (verrucata) is from the Latin word verrucatus meaning "warty", referring to the flower buds.

## Distribution and habitat

The Mount Abrupt stringybark grows in rocky places on the southern end of the Serra Range in the Grampians National Park.

