Botanical name Eucalyptus microcorys
A common name Tallowwood
Seedling
Not yet
Young plant
Juvenile
Reasonably mature
We like to joke that logging in years gone by has selected for multiple trunk Eucalyptus trees. It is now about 30 years since Sassafras was last logged. This Eucalyptus microcorys specimen was probably saved because it was a triple trunker, each trunk was probably a bit too small then. Despite the size I don't think this tree predates European settlement, "its just regrowth".
Sassafras
It is a big hard to appreciate the size of this tree so I took a photo a little further away.
The Eucalyptus microcorys is the one in the middle of the photo, with the classic shape of an emergent Tallowwood crown, to its' right is a fair size Eucalpytus saligna. If you look carefully in the E. saligna, just below some bright green leaves, you will see a dark object. This is the top of another E. microcorys that has been eaten by termites at the base and fallen into the E. saligna, it is "hung up", it was quite large but also had a second trunk which is now growing fast. This collapse has also let light into the regenerating rainforest community below it, a big plus.
The Tallowwood is actually some way lower down the ridge than the Sydney Blue Gum.
Most of our really large trees are Tallowwoods along with some Blue Gums. I expect this mix will change as the Rosewoods, Sassafras, Pepperberrys and many others, continue to grow over the next few centuries or so.
I know we had some quite large Blue Gums in the sky, we have one that was ring barked, with the classic nobbly bits of growth up the trunk, that is still standing, much taller than anything else near it. Likewise there is another, something else, ringbarked, that towers straight up, then turns at about 45 degrees and keeps on going, once it is above the existing canopy of Tallowwood and Blue Gum. I guess it was trying to get around something else. There are some quite large holes in the ground that used to have trees in them, and semi cirular terraces on the hill sides, more on that later.
Not many branches down here. This photo of the same tree is taken peering between two Syzygium floribundum. They are normally a stream side tree but there is soak here, oh and there are Ficus coronata reapearing in quite a few places further up and along the slope, no soak visible. They are also known as Creek Sandpaper Fig. It rains a bit here.
As they age the outer edge of the bark gets a very thin scaley layer, it doesn't look just fibrous any more. This particular specimen, with a single trunk, would be one of two that I strongly suspect are actually old growth, it is just slightly mishapen, enough to prevent it being cut down. This Eucalyptus mircrocorys is quite a large tree, it stands out among all its' neighbours.
At the base of this tree there is a Brush Turkey mound, the next one is about 100 to 150 metres away, just next to the base of a really large Eucalyptus saligna, just up hill from the triple trunker above.
The same tree a bit higher up, quite a bit actually. I've no idea who has done this, perhaps it was the Brush Turkeys, I sometimes see them up in the canopy keeping an eye on me, or maybe it was a Glider of some sort. There are no nearby branches that could have rubbed against the trunk up here.