Red Flowering Gum

Where   : Turramurra, New South Wales
When    : 4-00pm, Wednesday 19th December 2007
Weapon : Panasonic Lumix TZ3

This is the "red flowering gum" tree.  It's an Australian native and a eucalypt.  It's biological name is Eucalyptus ficifolia: Latin fici, of figs and folium, leaf, referring to the leaf shape.

It's a native of Western Australia some 4500 kilometres (say 2750 miles) away from here, down towards Esperance, south of Perth.

The tree is very common and popular in horticulture, and widely used throughout the cooler, coastal, southern latitudes of Australia as a street tree.  This beautiful specimen is growing right here in my street, on the nature strip by the side of the road.

As I re-read this, I suddenly got a blast from the past - from Ben E. King and the Drifters .... "It's growing in the street, right up through the concrete, but soft and sweet and dreamin'"  ... but I digress .. we are a far cry from Spanish Harlem here. Incidentally, I think this is one of the very best Album Covers ever designed !  Back to the topic ....

Its massed colourful flowers are highly attractive to lorikeets and honeyeaters - and real estate agents.