Risdon Peppermint
(Becoming rare and endangered.)
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Small open widely branched tree to 15m. tall, foliage silvery white, leaves covered with waxy bloom. Fresh bark on trunk and branches mottled in patches of white, silver and grey, old bark grey. Leaves, both juvenile and adult, blue-green, ovate-lanceolate with long points, opposite bases completely joined around the stem; overall length 6-10cm.
Small stalked cream flowers 5-15 together, in umbels, often several umbels in each leaf axil. Buds 5-8mm long, glaucous, hemispherical with conical gaps. Capsule 8-10mm diameter, pea-shaped, shining, smooth, flat across the top. Flowering irregularly.
Information courtesy of the Launceston Field Naturalists Club.
Note: this endemic species occurs on dry mudstone slopes where it has a sparse understorey of sclerophyll shrubs. It intergrades with E.tenuiramis and hybridizes with E.amygdalina
TAS endemic
