For the genus of flowering plants native to Australia, see Eucalyptus.
Eucalypteae is a large tribe of woody flowering plants with capsule fruiting bodies in the family Myrtaceae; members of this tribe are known as eucalypts.[1][2] In Australia the genera Angophora, Corymbia, and Eucalyptus are commonly known as gum trees, for the sticky substance that exudes from the trunk of some species[3], or stringybarks[4]. As of 2020[update], the tribe comprised around 860 species, all native to Southeast Asia and Oceania, with a main diversity center in Australia.[5]
For an example of changing historical perspectives, in 1991, largely genetic evidence indicated that some prominent Eucalyptus species were actually more closely related to Angophora than to other eucalypts; they were accordingly split off into the new genus Corymbia.[citation needed]
Although separate, all of these genera and their species are allied and it remains the standard to refer to the members of all seven genera Angophora, Corymbia, Eucalyptus, Stockwellia, Allosyncarpia, Eucalyptopsis and Arillastrum as "eucalypts" or as the eucalypt group.[6][7][8][9]
The extant genera Stockwellia, Allosyncarpia, Eucalyptopsis and Arillastrum comprise six known species, restricted to monsoon forests and rainforests in north-eastern Australia, the Arnhem Land plateau, New Guinea, the Moluccas and New Caledonia. These genera are recognised as having evolved from ancient lineages of the family Myrtaceae. According to genetic, fossil and morphological evidence, it is hypothesised that they evolved into separate taxa before the evolution of the more widespread and well-known genera Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora, and all of their many species.[6]
Eucalypts from fire-prone habitats are attuned to withstand fire in several ways:[10]
Their seeds are often held in an insulated capsule, which opens only after a bushfire. Once cooled down, the land becomes a freshly fertilised seed bed.
Oils in the leaves tend to make the fire more severe and therefore more damaging to less attuned species, giving an evolutionary advantage to the eucalypts.
1 2 Wilson, P. G. (2011) Myrtaceae. In The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. Volume X. Sapindales, Cucurbitales, Myrtaceae, edited by K. Kubitzki, X:212–71. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2011.
1 2 Macphail, Mike; Thornhill, Andrew H. (2016). "How old are the eucalypts? A review of the microfossil and phylogenetic evidence". Australian Journal of Botany. 64 (8): 579. doi:10.1071/BT16124.
↑ Lyne, A. 1996 "An Introduction to the Eucalypts The Genera Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora" Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research and Australian National Herbarium. Canberra
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