Eucalyptus tenuiramis, commonly known as the silver peppermint, is a species of small to medium-sized tree that is endemic to southeastern Tasmania. It has smooth bark, broadly lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of nine to fifteen, white flowers and cup-shaped, hemispherical or conical fruit.
Description
Eucalyptus tenuiramis is a tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth white to grey or yellowish bark. Young plants and coppice regrowth have sessile, egg-shaped leaves that are long, wide and arranged in opposite pairs. Adult leaves are broadly lance-shaped to elliptical, long and wide, tapering to a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of nine to fifteen on an unbranched peduncle long, the individual buds on pedicels long. Mature buds are oval to club-shaped, long and wide with a conical or rounded operculum. Flowering occurs from November to February and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody cup-shaped, hemispherical or conical capsule long and wide with the valves near rim level.
Taxonomy and naming
Eucalyptus tenuiramis was first formally described in 1856 by Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel in the journal Nederlandsch Kruidkundig Archief. The specific epithet (tenuiramis) is from the Latin tenui- meaning "slender" or "thin" and ramus meaning "branch".
This eucalypt is reported as being an older form of its sister species, E. risdonii.
Distribution and habitat
Silver peppermint grows in open forest, often in pure stands, on lowlands and hills in south-eastern Tasmania especially in the Derwent River valley, but also on the Freycinet Peninsula and on Flinders Island.