A pair of backyard Eucalypts…

Recently I discovered that a friend who has one of the biggest E Cinerea trees I have ever seen in her back yard would like some of it removed.  I offered to cut and take away the dead and insect affected parts, to her surprise, and have now made three visits to do just that. I’ve begun some dye pots with alpaca another friend has asked me to dye.

On the second visit to trim the E Cinerea, my friend’s partner spoke about the loss of a bough on their other eucalypt.  I looked closely at this second very large tree with rough, fibrous bark on the trunk and very narrow leaves and ‘Eucalyptus Nicholii’ went through my head.  Could I at last have found a fully grown specimen?  It branched so high and the ground had been so thoroughly cleared in the effort to remove all the fallen material that I couldn’t find fruit.  I did manage enough leaves for a dye pot however… and it is very promising! I heated the leaves for an hour, dropped the sample card in and went for a bike ride leaving the heat off.  When I got back:

As I write I have added some alpaca fleece.  I will have to wait to make a more definitive identification… I have sometimes found that all the hours I’ve spent with books on Eucalypts have created the context for me to have a correct intuition about a particular tree.  Equally often, though–I have completely the wrong end of the stick!  But the alpaca is looking good as it sits draining…