Eucalyptus Megacornuta: Warty Yate

Sometimes it is hard to know which to prefer.  The common name (Warty Yate)–splendiferous as it is–or the Latin name (E Megacornuta), also glorious!  Both names focus on the bud caps of this tree, which are both mega (4.5 cm long) and warty.

There was a yate (one of the still-splendid but not-so-warty yates–I am guessing E Lehmanii) growing in the playground at the kindergarten I went to. We would put the bud caps on our fingers and chase each other around, yelling ‘witch’s fingers!’  Needless to say, we had been offered no information about whether witches really have long pointy fingers and no one had offered me the perspective that witches might mostly have been maligned herbalists and midwives…

A friend’s dog is staying with us and we went for a walk the morning I picked these.  The flowers called out to me.  I identified this tree a couple of years back.  Those bud caps made identification simple, but as you might imagine this tree also has impressive fruit.   Speaking of awesomely good names, please note the ‘flattened, strap-like peduncle’ my eucalyptus manuals mention.

I picked up fallen, dried leaves and took home a small sample.  My sample dyepot showed a barely-orange tinted brown. I did also create a small sample bundle.

Fresh from the pot and still damp, it also was on the slightly orange side of brown.  However once dried out, washed and dried again, it had turned quite definitively brown.