Eucalyptus major, commonly known as grey gum, is a species of tree that is endemic to a small area near the New South Wales - Queensland border. It has smooth greyish bark, lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven and conical to cup-shaped fruit.
Eucalyptus major is a tree that typically grows to a height of and forms a lignotuber. It has smooth, blotched greyish bark that is shed in large plates or flakes. Young plants and coppice regrowth have egg-shaped leaves that are a lighter shade of green on the lower side, long and wide. Adult leaves are lance-shaped to curved, dark green on the upper surface, paler below, long and wide, tapering to a petiole long. The flower buds are arranged in leaf axils in groups of seven on a flattened, unbranched peduncle long, the individual buds sessile or a pedicels up to long. Mature buds are oval to diamond-shaped, long and wide with a conical operculum. Flowering has been recorded in November and the flowers are white. The fruit is a woody, conical to cup-shaped capsule long and wide with the valves protruding prominently above the rim of the fruit.[1] [2]
This eucalypt was first formally described in 1923 by Joseph Maiden who gave it the name Eucalyptus propinqua var. major and published the description in his book A Critical Revision of the Genus Eucalyptus.[3] [4] In 1934, William Blakely raised the variety to species status as Eucalyptus major, publishing the change in his book A Key to the Eucalypts.[5] The specific epithet (major) is a Latin word meaning "greater".[6]
The grey gum grows in tall forest in coastal areas and nearby hills in south-eastern Queensland, south from the Blackdown Tableland to far northern New South Wales.
This eucalypt is classified as "least concern" in Queensland under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.[7]