From Latin pruinosus (waxy, whitish, powdery 'bloom'), referring to the white wax on the flower buds and fruits.

Inland Blue Gum, Yellow Gum, Blue Gum.

Tree to 25 m high or rarely a mallee.
Bark smooth throughout, or with some incompletely shed rough, fibrous to flaky, grey to yellowish brown bark on basal 0.5–2 m of trunk; smooth bark yellowish with blue-grey and cream patches; horizontal bark scars sometimes present; branchlets often glaucous.
Juvenile growth (coppice or wild seedling to 50 cm high) stem rounded in cross-section, usually glaucous, smooth or warty; juvenile leaves opposite and sessile well into sapling stage, ovate to cordate, 3–9 cm long, 1.3–8 cm wide, margin entire or crenulate, base amplexicaul or rounded or pairs connate, blue-green or glaucous. Crowns sometimes with persistent juvenile and intermediate leaves.
Adult leaves alternate; petiole 0.3–2.5 cm long; blade lanceolate to falcate, 6–20 cm long, (0.8–) 1–3 cm wide, base tapering to petiole, concolorous, glossy or dull, green to blue-green or glaucous, side-veins at an acute or wider angle to midrib, densely to very densely reticulate, intramarginal vein parallel to and well removed from margin (sometimes doubled), oil glands island and intersectional.
Inflorescence axillary unbranched, peduncles 0.3–1 (–2) cm long, buds 3 per umbel, pedicels 0.2–0.9 cm long.
Mature buds ovoid to globular, 0.7–1 cm long, 0.5–0.8 cm wide, green to yellow or creamy, or glaucous, scar absent, operculum conical to rounded to beaked, stamens inflexed, with outer staminodes (rarely stamens all perfect), anthers adnate, positioned obliquely at filament tip, cuboid, dehiscing by terminal pores, style long, stigma pin-head shaped, locules 4–6, the placentae each with 4 vertical ovule rows.
Flowers white.
Fruit pedicellate (pedicels 0.1–0.9 cm long), cup-shaped to hemispherical or truncate-globose, 0.5–1.2 cm long, 0.6–1.2 (–1.4) cm wide, glaucous or non-glaucous, staminal ring broad, deciduous, disc descending, valves 4–6, near rim level or enclosed.
Seeds black, brown or grey, 1–1.5 mm long, flattened-ovoid, dorsal surface shallowly reticulate, hilum ventral.

[This description from EUCLID may include elements of subsp. bellarinensis from Vic. - see key to subspecies and Eucalyptus leucoxylon subsp. bellarinensis profile - Editor.]

Cultivated seedlings (measured at c. node 10): cotyledons reniform to oblong; stems rounded in cross-section, smooth or warty, glaucous; leaves sessile, opposite for many nodes (at least 15), broadly ovate or cordate, 4–8 cm long, 2.5–6 cm wide, base amplexicaul to rounded, dull, grey-green to glaucous.

Flowering recorded in February, June–July and September–December.

Native.

Occurs in drier areas of southeastern South Australia, the Wimmera and Goldfields areas of Victoria, and in New South Wales, where restricted to the Murray River floodplain near Barham.

Occurs in clay and sandy soil in woodland (Chippendale 1988: 424). Often on deeper soils but also on stony rises (EUCLID 2020).

Eucalyptus leucoxylon subsp. pruinosa (F.Muell. ex Miq.) Boland, Austral. Forest Res. 9: 68 (1979); Eucalyptus leucoxylon var. pruinosa F.Muell. ex. Miq., Ned. Kruidk. Arch. 4: 127 (1856). Type: Salt Creek, S.A., Jan. 1849, F. Mueller or H. Behr; syn: MEL 1010320; Salt Creek, F. Mueller or H. Behr; syn: U 190557; fide D.J. Boland, Austral. Forest Res. 9: 68 (1979).

Eucalyptus leucoxylon var. pauperita J.E.Br., Forest Fl. S. Australia 2: pl. 9 (1883). Type: several syntypes; lecto: illustration accompanying original description, J.E. Brown, Forest Fl. S. Australia 2: pl. 9 (1883), fide D.J. Boland, Austral. Forest Res. 9: 68 (1979).

A tree to 25 m high with smaller, globular, often glaucous buds and fruits. The juvenile leaves are blue-green to glaucous and sometimes connate. The mature crown may contain a proportion of bluish juvenile and intermediate leaves. This subspecies [as treated in this profile from EUCLID] includes subsp. bellarinensis from south of Geelong, Vic. [For differences with the subspecies E. leucoxylon subsp. bellarinensis, an accepted taxon in the Australian Plant Census (accessed 26 February 2025) are described by Rule (1998) - Editor]. Also included is the narrow-leaved var. pauperita from the northern Mt Lofty Ranges, lower slopes of Mt Remarkable and hills south of Orroroo, Peterborough and also the foot of Mt Bryan near Burra, S.A.

See also MORE ABOUT EUCALYPTS.

M.I.H. Brooker & D.A. Kleinig, Field Guide to Eucalypts 1: 270 (1983); S. Kelly et al., Eucalypts 2: t. 232 (1983); A.S. George (ed.), Flora of Australia 19: 423, fig. 108M–N (1988). See Eucalyptus leucoxylon subsp. pruinosa in EUCLID 4th edn (2020).

Boland, D.J. (1979). A Taxonomic Revision of Eucalyptus leucoxylon F. Muell. Australian Forest Research 9: 65–72.

Chippendale, G.M. (1988). Myrtaceae - Eucalyptus, Angophora, in George, A.S. (ed.), Flora of Australia Volume 19. (Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra).

Rule, K. (1998). A new, rare Victorian subspecies of Eucalyptus leucoxylon F.Muell. Muelleria 11: 133–136.

Published 26 February 2025. Adapted from EUCLID - Eucalypts of Australia Forth Edition (2020).