Geelong’s gumtrees—Wreck Beach Track, Moonlight Head 
...Trevor Pescott 
M oonlight Head is at the western end of the Otway 
Ranges, and is at the edge of the area covered in 
this ‘Geelong’s Gumtrees’ series—but it is here that two 
extremely interesting trees are found. One is a very rare 
subspecies, the other a variety of a common species, and 
both are well worth having a close look at. 
The first has the unlikely common name of Mallee Manna 
Gum, Eucalyptus splendens subsp. arcane. It is a 
Large-flowered Swamp Gum Photo: Trevor Pescott 
Mallee Manna Gum Photo: Trevor Pescott 
rounded, stunted tree growing to no more than about six 
metres tall, but usually rather less than that. Dean Nicolle 
(2006) writes that the Mallee Manna Gum, also called the 
Carpenter Rocks Gum, was originally known from a single 
population spanning about a kilometre near Carpenter 
Rocks in south-east South Australia. But it was later 
located in Victoria ‘near Moonlight Head on the Otway 
coast, where less than 50 individual plants grow on a 
slight slope overlooking the coast on orange clay over 
limestone, in low scrub with E. baxteri, E. ovata and E. 
willisii. ’ E. splendens subsp. splendens is a Victorian 
endemic, found only in a small area in the Mt Richmond 
region near Portland. It is known as the Mt Richmond 
Apple-jack and is superficially similar to the unrelated 
Rough-barked Manna Gum E. viminalis subsp. 
cygnetensis which in turn is, according to Nicolle, confined 
to the south-west of Victoria. This is outside our study 
area. 
The second of the trees is the Large-flowered Swamp 
Gum E. ovatav ar. grandiflora. It resembles the typical 
Swamp Gum E. ovata var. ovata but the buds, flowers, 
seed capsules and leaves, although similar in shape, are 
considerably larger. An average of 20 capsules of var. 
ovata from Blanket Bay Road, Cape Otway were 6.5 mm 
wide, while a comparative number of var. grandiflora were 
8.9 mm. 
Mallee Manna Gums and the Large-flowered Swamp 
Gums, as well as stunted, ground-hugging Brown 
Stringybarks E. baxteri, were in flower when I visited 
Wreck Beach Track at Moonlight Head on 6 January 2013. 
Swamp Gums var. ovata were also present. According to 
Otways resident Judi Forester, a stunted form of the Bog 
Gum E. kitsoniana is to be found on the cliff-top in the 
same area, but I didn’t see it during my recent visit. 
References: 
Nicolle, Dean (2006) Eucalypts of Victoria and Tasmania 
Additions to the library 
...Lorraine Phelan 
Y ou can now view the GFNC library catalogue on our 
webpage—look under the first tab (Activities) and click 
on ‘Our library’. There you will find three PDF files and you 
can choose between Dewey order, author order or title 
order. 
The following books have been added to the library: 
Defending the Little Desert, Libby Robin, 1998 [333.78 
ROB] 
Flora of Australia: Vol. 18 Podostemaceae to 
Combretaceae, 1990 [581.994 FLO] 
Plant Names: a Guide to Botanical Nomenclature, Royal 
Botanical Gardens, 1990 [581.014 RBG] 
Moths of Victoria: Part 1 Silk Moths and Allies — 
Bombcoidea 2nd edn, Peter Marriott, 2012 [598.78 
MAR] 
Moths of Victoria: Part 4 Emeralds and Allies — 
Geometridae (B), Peter Mariott, 2012 [598.78 MAR] 
Snakes, Lizards and Frogs of the Victorian Mallee, Michael 
Swan & Simon Watherow, 2005 [597.90 SWA] 
The Once and Future Moon, Paul Spudis, 1996 [523.3 
SPU] 
12 Geelong Naturalist February 2012 
