Botanical name        Backhousia myrtifolia

A common name       Grey Myrtle

Seedling

Not yet, but there are quite a few seedlings to choose from, soon.

Young plant

Not yet, as above

Juvenile

These are actually mature leaves, it's just the tree they are on is more of a sapling not a real tree yet, maybe in couple of years time I might change my mind.

A couple of the othercommon names for Backhousia myrtifolia reflect just how good the timber of this tree is, "Ironwood" and "Neverbreak".  As distinct from Axebreak which is one of the common names of another local tree.

The new shoots are distinctly hairy, the stems take a while to loose the hairs.




















Notice the silky hairs even on some of the green leaves in the bottom right hand corner (press ctrl + to zoom).  The shoots and the hairiness of some adult leaves make them quite distinctive even if you find the leaves otherwise a little hard to differentiate from some other species.
























The longitudinal fissures in the bark always seem to maintain the tan/orange colour even on trees somewhat older than this sapling.





















The photos above are from this young vigorous plant.  It is on a drier slope a little way above our internal creek, exposed on the northerly fence line.   Though it actually wouldn't be that dry, it's just exposed now.  There is a felled Doryphora sassafras trunk about 20 metres down slope about the same distance in from the fence I am standing at.  The trunk is about 60cm in diameter, it used to have sprouts arising from it, it finally died in the drought during 2002-3.  The Sassafras was still about 30 metres from our internal creek and well above it.  Sassafras don't normally grow in dry exposed locations, it just seems that way now with no trees to the north.



There is a grove of smaller and larger specimens on a very steep slope overlooking Mooral Creek, the creek that is.  Now as I'm recreating this page I realise there is quite an advanced grove on the edge of our second gully, they would be in the order of 20 metres or more tall. 

They would be rather stout trees if their other common names are anything to go by.

I'll get some photos for the "reasonabley mature" section.

Reasonably mature

Coming shortly.