Sydney red gum

Angophora costata

"Angophora costata", commonly known as Sydney red gum, is a species of tree that is endemic to eastern Australia. Reaching 30 m in height, the species has distinctive smooth bark that is pinkish or orange-brown when new and fades to grey with age.
Sydney Red Gum These are losing their bark at present and are just gorgeous! Angophora costata,Australia,Geotagged,Summer,Sydney red gum

Appearance

"Angophora costata" is a tree that typically grows to a height of 30 m and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth pinkish or orange-brown bark that weathers to grey and is shed in small scales.

Young plants and coppice regrowth have sessile, elliptical to egg-shaped leaves arranged in opposite pairs with a stem-clasping base, 60–125 mm long and 20–65 mm wide. Adult leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, glossy green but paler on the lower surface, lance-shaped or curved, 70–190 mm long and 12–35 mm wide on a petiole 9–25 mm long.

New leaf growth is strongly tinted with red. The flower buds are arranged on the ends of branchlets on a branched peduncle 3–25 mm long, each branch of the peduncle with usually three buds on pedicels 3–15 mm long. Mature buds are oval to globe-shaped, up to 10 mm long and 11 mm wide. There are five sepals up to 3 mm long and the petals are white to creamy white with a green keel, 3–5 mm long and 3–6 mm wide. Flowering occurs from October to December.

The fruit is a oval or bell-shaped capsule up to 20 mm long and wide. New seedlings have petiolate round cotyledon leaves 1.5 cm wide and long.
Red gums rising Known commonly as Sydney red gum, smooth-barked apple and also rusty gum, these beautiful trees have a primarily coastal occurrence here in New South Wales. Typically found on sandstone and sandy areas in dry sclerophyll woodlands and forests. The bark is smooth and red-salmon to brown-grey-purple. They have an annual shedding process where large amounts of thin plates are shed. Old trees typically have many dimples as seen here, contorted branches and large bowl-like swellings (hence the reference to 'apple' in one of the common names). Angophora is one of three similar genera that are commonly referred to as 'eucalypts', the others being Corymbia and Eucalyptus. Growing to 30 m/98 feet in height. Angophora costata,Australia,Geotagged,Myrtaceae,Myrtales,Summer,Sydney red gum,angophora costata,botany,flora,new south wales,rusty gum,smooth-barked apple

Naming

Sydney red gum was first formally described in 1788 by German botanist Joseph Gaertner and given the name "Metrosideros costata" in his book "De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum", from material collected by surveyor David Burton around Port Jackson.
Gnarly Trunk Angophora costata,Australia,Fall,Geotagged,Sydney red gum

Distribution

"Angophora costata" grows in sandy soil, often over sandstone and occurs naturally in Queensland and New South Wales. It is widely distributed in south-eastern Queensland and disjunctly in the White Mountains National Park. In New South Wales it mainly occurs in coastal areas south from Coffs Harbour to Narooma and as far west as the Blue Mountains.

It is found from sea level to an altitude of 300 m in areas of predominantly summer rainfall receiving 600 to 1,200 mm a year. Maximum temperatures across its range vary from 25 to 35 °C and minimum temperatures from 0 to 8 °C, with anywhere from 0 to 50 days of frost.
Dreamtime Tree - How many faces can you see ? The Dreaming, or ‘Tjukurrpa’, means to ‘see and understand the law’ as it is translated from the Arrernte language (Frank Gillen with Baldwin Spencer, translating an Arrernte word Altyerrenge). In most stories of the Dreaming, the Ancestor Spirits came to the earth in human form and as they moved through the land, they created the animals, plants, rocks, rivers, mountains and other forms of the land that we know today. These Ancestral Spirits also formed the relationships between Aboriginal people, the land and all living beings. Once the ancestor spirits created the world, they transformed into trees, the stars, rocks, watering holes etc. These are the sacred places of Aboriginal culture and have special meaning. https://www.aboriginal-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-library/understanding-aboriginal-dreaming-and-the-dreamtime/ Angophora costata,Australia,Geotagged,Sydney red gum,Winter

Habitat

It grows in open forest and woodland, in association with such species as Sydney peppermint, bangalay, grey gum, blue-leaved stringybark, white mahogany, broad-leaved white mahogany, large-fruited red mahogany, red bloodwood, yellow bloodwood, pink bloodwood lemon-scented gum, turpentine, forest oak, and cypress pines, and in hind dune communities with wedding bush and burrawang.
Angophora - angophora costata Beautiful to look in the sunlight after rain. Angophora costata,Australia,Geotagged,Spring,Sydney,Sydney red gum,angophora costata

Cultural

Smooth-barked apple grows well in a variety of situations and can be easily grown from seed in a loose, well-drained seed-raising mixture. Some specimens have straight trunk but others have a more branching habit with twisted trunks. The tree sometimes sheds branches and should not be planted close to buildings.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

Taxonomy
KingdomPlantae
DivisionAngiosperms
ClassEudicots
OrderMyrtales
FamilyMyrtaceae
GenusAngophora
SpeciesA. costata
Photographed in
Australia