Eucalyptus Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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This genus of trees and shrubs, with more than 700 species, dominates the tree flora of Australia. There are also a number of native species growing wild in New Zealand, Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Philippines, with many plantations established recently in Vietnam.

The word eucalyptus derives from the Greek, meaning “well-covered.” In Australia, the trees are generally known as gum trees, or sometimes because of the fact that the bark seems to “peel” in the summer, they are referred to as stringybark trees. Although they grow wild, they are also common as trees providing shade in parks, on sides of roads and in the gardens of houses, as well as being planted in forestry plantations.

The leaves of eucalyptus trees are leathery because the tree often has to survive in areas of low moisture or water shortages. They hang either obliquely or vertically with the modified petals falling off as the flower opens and the woody cup-shaped fruits, called gumnuts, open at one end to release minute seeds.

The eucalyptus tree grows quickly and can achieve great heights, with some reaching 300 or more feet, and sometimes can have a circumference of up to 25 feet. Most of these very large eucalyptus trees survive in national parks. One peculiar aspect of the eucalyptus is that they tend to only have branches toward the top of the tree, partly because of their great height and partly because they can grow close to each other; lower branches have become superfluous.

During hot periods of the summer, the eucalyptus trees shed much of their bark and many of their leaves, allowing piles of dry leaves to form fuel for bush fires, which also happen during the summer. However, once the fire has gone through an area of eucalyptus trees, burning away all the undergrowth, the trees drop seeds that find fertile soil on the forest floor. The ferocity with which the leaves burn may have been one of the contributing factors to the Oakland Hills fire in California in 1991, as many eucalyptus had been planted in the area, close to housing.

Because the eucalyptus trees have to survive in dry climates, they have very deep roots, and this also allows them to generally survive the fires well. It was for this reason that many eucalyptus trees have been planted in Vietnam in areas affected by defoliants, because the much deeper roots can often penetrate soil that has not been as badly polluted by the chemicals as the soil closer to the surface.

Throughout Australia, eucalyptus has been used as fuel, but is also used for building, especially sheds and fencing. Joseph Banks, a botanist on the 1770 voyage of Captain Cook to Australia, took back some eucalyptus saplings, and there are now some eucalyptus trees growing in places with similar climates such as California, and also Galicia in Spain, Portugal, South Africa, and parts of Brazil, Morocco, and Israel.

The proverbial “gum tree,” however, remains very much a part of the Australian identity, appearing in many paintings of Australia, and also in books, including the titles of many stories, and also in folk songs and poems.

Despite the importance and success of the species in its home range, the introduction of eucalyptus for environmental remediation and afforestation around the world has led to unforeseen negative consequences. The tree can tap deep aquifers and compete with other native species for groundwater, and it can grow aggressively in some contexts and compete for light. Some caution is now exercised before the species is recommended for plantation outside of Australia. Nevertheless, the remarkable adaptive qualities of the gum tree are widely recognized for a reason.

Bibliography:

Ian Brooker and David Kleinig, Eucalyptus: An Illustrated Guide to Identification (Reed, 1996);
John Coppen, Eucalyptus: The Genus Eucalyptus (Taylor & Francis, 2002);
Dean Nicolle, Eucalyptus of Victoria and Tasmania (Bloomings, 2006).