Named after Johann August Ludwig Preiss (1811–1883). After obtaining his doctorate in Germany, Johann Preiss came to Perth, Western Australia on the 4th December 1838. He spent the next three years enthusiastically collecting plant material and amassed about 200,000 specimens before leaving for London in 1842.

Bell-fruited Mallee, Stirling Range Mallee.

Mallee to 2.5 m high. Bark grey. Juvenile leaves opposite, sessile, ovate to elliptic, concolorous. Adult leaves opposite or subopposite, ovate to elliptic, obtuse, broadly cuneate, thick; lamina 7–12 cm long, 3–5 cm wide, grey-green; lateral veins prominent, at 50°–60°; intramarginal vein up to 5 mm from margin; petiole flattened, 10–30 mm long. Umbels 3-flowered; peduncle flattened, 10–25 mm long, to 10 mm wide; pedicels usually absent, rarely to 4 mm long. Buds ovoid to ±fusiform, usually red; operculum hemispherical or conical, 8–10 mm long, 10–14 mm wide; hypanthium obconical, 10–15 mm long, 10–14 mm wide; stamens yellow. Fruits campanulate, 18–25 mm long, 23–30 mm wide, woody; disc obliquely descending, swollen over valves; valves 5 or 6, included. Seeds D-shaped, red-brown.

[For more recent description see subspecies profiles - Editor]

Native.

Endemic to Western Australia, where it occurs in coastal and subcoastal areas from the Stirling Range and Fitzgerald National Park east almost to Esperance. 

Usually in thickets in heathland on low hills, in lateritic and rocky clay soil.

W.A.: Woolbernup Hill, M.I.H. Brooker 2731 (FRI, PERTH); 12.6 km SE of Ravensthorpe, G.M. Chippendale 416 (FRI, MEL, NSW, PERTH); 4 km SE of Ravensthorpe, P.G. Wilson 5520 (FRI, PERTH).

Eucalyptus preissiana Schauer in J.G.C. Lehmann, Pl. Preiss. 1: 131 (1844). Type: Cape Riche, W.A., Nov. 1840, L. Preiss 239; iso: MEL.

Eucalyptus preissiana is a low sprawling mallee species. The stems are smooth and the adult leaves thick, dull, light green.

Eucalyptus preissiana belongs in Eucalyptus subgenus Eucalyptus series Preissianae, a small group characterised by smooth bark, buds in threes, buds with a single operculum (hence no operculum scar), cuboid anthers that shed pollen by two separate slits, ovules arranged in two rows on the placenta, fruit that are large with the disc lobed over the valves and seed pyramidal to cuboid and seedlings with sessile, opposite leaves for at least 10 nodes.

There are 4 species in series Preissianae, viz. E. megacarpa, E. preissiana, E. coronata and E. aquilina. The most divergent species of this subgroup is E. preissiana which has brown seeds, smooth buds and yellow flowers, but one form of it (E. preissiana subsp. lobata) has broadly obconical fruit very similar to those of the white-flowered tall slender mallee E. aquilina. E. coronata has strongly ribbed buds and fruit, whilst E. megacarpa has smooth buds, cupular to bell-shaped fruit and is usually a tree.

Eucalyptus preissiana subsp. preissiana
Comparatively small cupular to obconical fruit (2–3.5 cm wide) with the disc descending slightly but with conspicuously raised lobes covering the valves.

Eucalyptus preissiana subsp. lobata 
A low dense shrub form. The fruit have a raised disc very prominently lobed over the valves and are much wider (3.5–5.3 cm) and shallower than in subsp. preissiana.

Specimens with fruit morphology intermediate between the two subspecies have been noted at Cape Riche, in the Ravensthorpe Range and around Mason's Bay.

MORE ABOUT EUCALYPTS

G.M. Chippendale, Eucalypts W. Austral. Goldfields 34 (1973); C.A. Gardner (ed. T.E. Aplin), Eucalypts W. Australia 109 (1979); S. Kelly et al., Eucalypts 1: t. 126 (1983); A.S. George (ed.), Flora of Australia 19: xiii, fig. 23; 127, fig. 52E–F (1988).

Brooker, M.I.H. (2000). A new Classification of the Genus Eucalyptus L'Her. (Myrtaceae). Australian Systematic Botany 13(1): 79–148.

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

Schauer, J.C. (1844). In Lehmann, J.G.C. (ed.) Myrtaceae. Plantae Preissianae 1(1): 96–158.

Published . Adapted from EUCLID Eucalypts of Australia Edition 4.