I agree eucalypts are unusual, I also find them beautiful, especially ones with smooth light bark like Ghost Gum and Citriodora, which has light pinky-orange bark! Such a presence!). I've never seen a Rainbow Gum but would love to one day!

I live in South Australia and I was surprised to hear about all Eucalypts having 'leaf dimorphism' (that is what I searched for, then learned that it's usually known as 'heteroblasty') I have of course seen it many times in-the-wild, but it is not universal to all Eucalypts.

Banksia, Grevillea and Hakea are also very beautiful Australian native trees/shrubs imo, but they are a different group: Proteaceae. And there's a fascinating fruiting small tree called 'Quandong' that's in the Sandalwood family (still seems bit related to eucalypts or maybe Wattle (Acacia) when looking at it in real life though).

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lmpdev 9 hours ago | parent [-]

As someone who grew up with a Quandong in their backyard please don’t plant quandongs without serious planning

It grew 40m in ~10 years and spanned ~200-300m^2

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danwills 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Wow! I have not heard about that! A 40m tal! Quandong!? Crikey! Tallest I've seen is about 10m. I guess they usually don't get that big in SA.

Must have been ideal conditions for it in your case and maybe it happened to be a particularly vigorous/fast-growing variant!? I have heard that it can be hard to get the seeds to germinate (sounds like it was working without troubles on your property!) I'd actually be kinda happy if it took over most of the grass at my place though I reckon! :)

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lmpdev 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah the Blue Quandongs get pretty big

Tweed Valley in NNSW so lots of water and volcanic soil

Edit: turns out the Blue Quandong and the Quandong are very different species - my mistake

	▲	danwills 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Ah wow that is awesome, thankyou for clarifying that! Today I learned there's another native fruit with a similar name, but you're right it's a totally different species! Good to know! I wondered, since quandong sounds like an Aboriginal word, whether it might be similar to what happened with the word 'sapote' in South American fruits. I have heard that it means 'soft fruit' and hardly any of them are even related species!: White Sapote (ice-cream fruit, it's amazing, related to citrus) Black Sapote: might not quite live up to the name chocolate-pudding-fruit, but a perfectly ripe one is still delightful imo, related to persimmon) I haven't tried Mamey Sapote yet or any others.. something to look forward to! :) I'm envious of that volcanic soil! Quite clay-y in the Adelaide Hills.. I have had a white Sapote in the ground for years and it's still less than 1m tall :/ don't know if it will ever fruit.. should care for the soil better I'm guessing, that might get it going :)
	▲	benj111 24 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>NNSW North New South Wales??? Or interesting compass direction?0