41 
No. 195. 
Eucalyptus crebra F.v.M. 
Narrow-leaved Red Ironbark. 
(Family MYRTACE^E.) 
Botanical description. Genus, Eucalyptus. (See Part II, p. 33.) 
Botanical description. Species, E. crebra F.v.M. in Journ. Linn. Soc. iii, 87 
(1859). 
It has been described by Bentham in the following words : 
A small, middle-sized, or sometimes a large tree, with a hard, blackish, rough, persistent bark 
(F. Mueller and others). 
Leaves oblong-lanceolate or linear, straight or more frequently falcate, obtuse, mucronate-acute 
or acuminate, attaining 4 to 6 inches long, rather thick and glaucous or yellowish when dry 
in the northern specimens, thinner in the subtropical ones, with numerous very diverging 
fine parallel veins, the intramarginal one very near or close to the edge. 
Peduncles short, terete or nearly so, each with about 3 to 6 small flowers on short but distinct 
pedicels, umbels usually 3 or 4 together in short panicles either terminal or axillary, or 
rarely the lower ones solitary in the axils. 
Calyx-tube turbinate, about one line diameter. 
Operculum conical or hemispherical, about as long as the calyx-tube. 
Stamens 1 to 2 lines long, all perfect, inflected in the bud : anthers very small and globular, like 
those of the Porantherce, but the cells distinct and opening longitudinally to the base. 
Ovary flat-topped or slightly convex in the centre. 
Fruit obovoid-truncate, not 2 lines in diameter, somewhat contracted at the orifice, and often 
shortly attenuate at the base, the rim narrow, the capsule more or less sunk but the tips of 
the valves often protruding when open. (B.F1. iii, 221.) 
Botanical Name. Eucalyptus, already explained (see Part II, p. 34) ; 
crebra, Latin, thickly grown, in other words, "plenty of them." 
Vernacular Names. I propose the name " Narrow-leaved Red Ironbark " 
as sufficiently distinctive. E. paniculata may also be narrow leaved, but its 
timber cannot be called red. At the same time Ironbaik has sometimes an adjectival 
prefix which has nothing to do with the colour of the timber, but refers to the 
general appearance of the bark. Thus on that ground at Dubbo E. crebra is often 
known as Grey Ironbark as well as Red Ironbark. Incidentally, it may be mentioned 
that no E. paniculata occurs within hundreds of miles of Dubbo, so that no local 
confusion arises with that tree. 
