Scientific Name: Eucalyptus Globulus
Family: Myrtle (Myrtaceae)
Eucalyptus Facts

Leaves: The leaves of blue gum eucalyptus are stiff, elliptic-ovate, 3 to 6 inches long, with a curved shape and an acute tip, and range from green to reddish brown in color. They are arranged in an opposite fashion. 

Flowers: Yellowish flower buds have a warty cap that falls off, allowing the numerous stamen filaments to extend in shaving-brush fashion above the cup-shaped base (called a hypanthium). In California, eucalyptus blooms from November to April, the wet season. 

Fruit: A distinctive top-shaped woody capsule ripens in October to March in California, about 11 months after flowering. At this stage, the evergreen tree appears to bear many pieces flavored chewing gum. These capsules release seed immediately on ripening, and the seed is wind-dispersed. 

Habitat: Indigenous to Australia, where it occurs mainly along the East Coast of Tasmania, blue gum eucalyptus is most frequently found growing in groves or as windbreaks within grassland, scrub, woodland, or forest habitat in a great variety of conditions in Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 

Cultural Uses: Eucalyptus was first employed by Australian aborigines, who chewed the roots for water in the dry outback. Eucalyptus leaves have been crushed and used by the Aborigines to heal wounds, fight infection and fevers, and relieve muscular pain. The wood has been used on cooking fires to flavor food. Early nineteenth-century eclectic physicians in the United States not only employed eucalyptus oil to sterilize instruments and wounds but also recommended a steam inhalation of the vapor of its oil to help treat asthma, bronchitis, whooping cough, and emphysema. Blue gum eucalyptus was first cultivated in California in 1853 as an ornamental plant. Widespread commercial planting, primarily for timber and fuel, began after 1870, with a second planting boom in the early 1900s. By the 1930s, planting in California lost popularity because the wood was found to be unsuitable for lumber production and decreasing in demand as fuel. 

Interesting Information: Blue gum eucalyptus is most invasive on sites subject to summer fog drip and rarely invasive in the Central Valley or in dry southern California locations. It produces a chemical that leaches into the soil and inhibits the growth of indigenous California plant species. Eucalyptus trees, especially the bark litter falling beneath, are extremely flammable, and are a major concern during the hot, dry California summers.